Preference for sons over daughters no longer case in Korea

• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Publication title: The Korea Times

The centuries-old preference for sons over daughters has been diminishing in Korea amid growing awareness of gender equality as well as the rapid population decline witnessed in recent years. The latest data on the sex ratio at births shows such preferences are apparently no longer the case here.

Released by Statistics Korea, Wednesday, the data showed that 104.7 baby boys were born for every 100 baby girls in 2022.

The year 2022, according to the stats agency, falls within the balanced sex ratio of 103 to 107 boys for every 100 girls at birth.

The 2022 findings continue on from the balanced ratio seen over the past decade: 105.1 boys for every 100 girls in 2021, 104.8 boys for every 100 girls in 2020 and 104.8 boys for every 100 girls in 2019.

In particular, the sex ratio of newly-born babies last year was the most balanced since the 1990s when the boy-to-girl ratio was 116.5 boys for every 100 girls ? on average.

Such an imbalance was caused due to the son-favoring mentality that prevailed in Korean society, and by parents choosing to abort female babies based on gender information from...