The Youth Will Decide: The Gender Gap in South Korea

Sitting with some friends at the terrace of a GS25 in Hongdae, we were celebrating the end of our midterms with Korean beer and peach soju. Before arriving at a consensus on what to do next - either playing darts at Corner PUB or dancing at MON5 - a Korean man kindly asked to sit with us. Gladly welcoming him, intrigued by the newcomer’s confidence and boldness, we resumed our varied discussions. At first, I didn’t pick up much of what he was saying from across the table, but soon conversations around the table faded away; eclipsed by a heated debate stirring between him and another friend. While she took the position that women in South Korea face more challenges than men, he disagreed, and claimed that none of the women he knew ever expressed this. 

Even when confronted with solid evidence, the man never wavered, confident that his personal experience better captured the complex reality of gender inequality in South Korea. Unlike him, perhaps you do believe that numbers can reveal what daily experience might obscure. In South Korea’s case, they tell a different story. While its citizens enjoy some of the most extensive civil liberties across the world, gender inequality in the Asian peninsula, particularly economic and political inequalities, are deeply entrenched. South Korea placed 101st in gender parity this year, according to the World Economic Forum. 

Depth of the Gender Gap Today

In 2025, South Korean women between the ages of 15 and 64 earned, on average, almost one-third less than men. This number indicates deeply unequal opportunities between men and women, and further reveal that women generally occupy lower-paying, non-regular jobs, aside from being critically underrepresented in leadership positions. 

The violence is not just economic, but physical too, as indicated by a 2023 report on gender-based violence by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This research revealed that nearly half of Korean respondents believe a husband is sometimes justified in using physical violence against his wife. Compared with the OECD average of 10%, this figure illustrates the immense gap between South Korea and other liberal democracies. Amid a fierce backlash against feminism, often amplified by prominent and controversial political figures, progress towards gender equality in South Korea is stalled.

Intra-Generational Drift

One of the most notable political figures in this regard is the recently evicted, conservative ex-president, Yoon Suk-yeol, who during the 2022 presidential campaign, imposed himself as the leading figure of the anti-feminist movement. During his presidential tenure, he denied the structural discrimination women face, and even called for the abolition of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. While the Democratic Party (DPK) runner-up, Lee Jae-myung, partially acknowledged the gender inequality issue, he remained cautious not to upset the young male electorate, who increasingly find themselves frustrated with the rising feminist movement. 

This trend is best illustrated by a recent study (2023), which shows that more than half of the men in their 20s conflate feminism with women's supremacy, and almost a quarter identify themselves as victims. On the other hand, feminism in Korea has grown faster than in any other Asian country in the past decade; especially after the 2016 Gangnam Station Murder Case, in which a 23-year-old woman was murdered in a public restroom by a man who later admitted he did it because “women always ignored me.” While this event drew widespread public awareness to the deep-seated misogyny, demonstrations remained largely symbolic, and outrage was confined to anonymous-safe online platforms. Eventually, the collective effort of feminist activists propelled the 4B movement (Four No’s Movement) from a small online feminist subculture to a globally-recognized social movement. Named after its four core principles of rejection, the movement challenges patriarchal norms by collectively rejecting traditional heteronormative relationships:

Biyeonae (비연애): no dating

Bihon (비혼): no marriage

Bisex (비섹스): no sex with men

Bisaengyu (비출산): no childbirth

While the movement has faced serious backlash at home, it successfully exported itself abroad, as seen in the aftermath of the 2024 U.S. elections, when the 4Bs appeared on social media platforms as part of a larger social protest against Trump’s reelection. Still, due to the widespread backlash against feminism and the social stigma that advocates endure, demonstrations in favor of women’s rights remain relatively small compared to other mass political protests. 

This stigma is reinforced through verbal violence, with pejoratives like femi, an insult directed at advocates of gender equality, or kimchi women, to designate alleged ungrateful gold diggers. These tensions have led to an unprecedented political polarization between men and women in their 20s, reflected in the 2025 presidential election, in which nearly  60% of women of that age voted for progressive candidate Lee Jae-Myung, compared to the nearly 40% of young men who voted for the conservative and anti-feminist political figure Lee Jun-Seok. 

The Return of Lee Jae-myung

The result of the 2025 snap election saw Lee Jae-myung declared as president, the same candidate who had lost to Yoon Suk-yeol in the previous presidential elections. This time, however, he advocated for important structural reforms to address the issue of gender inequality, urging to ‘boldly reform unreasonable systems in line with the nation's stature and work to correct misconceptions.’

As of October 2025, women in the Korean parliament still account for just 20% of the seats, compared to the 34% OECD average. While Lee’s administration has made important promises in relation to the plaguing issue of gender inequality, their words have not yet been met with concrete initiatives. 

Currently, an anti-discrimination bill, waitlisted since 2007 due to conservative resistance, is being pushed forward by Minister of Gender Equality and Family Won Min-Kyong. But whether the proposition will be approved by the Cabinet, and then the National Assembly, remains highly uncertain, with President Lee warning against renewed debates, fearing this could ‘exacerbate the already deep social division and take the attention away from more urgent issues.’

The End of the Republic? 

What will happen in the years to come remains uncertain. The profound division, opposition, and mutual incomprehension between young men and women in South Korea will shape society’s trajectory in the near future. Contrary to what Lee says, this is perhaps the most urgent issue at hand. Particularly in the country with the lowest birthrate in the world, and the highest suicide rate across the OECD, allowing the alienation between young men and women to continue indefinitely might ultimately prove fatal. 

Certainly, the youth are the future, but for how long?