South Korea's gender imbalance bad news for men − outnumbering women, many face bleak marriage prospects

Who wants to marry a South Korean in this situation ?

World market makes women the most valuable thing on Earth.

Together with the South Korean government’s efforts to reduce sex selection beginning in the late 1980s, the premium for boys over girls has dropped.

In the Khanate Korean women were highly-prized and paid for with their weight in gold.

Korean womanhood's intelligence and beauty has achieved a higher profile worldwide and domestically it is upsetting the traditional gender balance.

In South Korea, as well as with many Asian countries, boys are held in higher esteem than girls. What isn't mentioned here is what went on in China during the one-child policy. If a fetus was not a boy, then abortions happened until, by god, it was a boy. The difference is far to large to account for statistical averages. Now, girls might be allowed their popularity due them. All this 'male child' business is comic pre-history stuff. Had a girl, and I couldn't be happier. Of course, boy or girl, it didn't matter to me. Shouldn't matter to any parents.

Preference for boys seems like too easy an answer. I wonder if this author can explain what Japan’s problem is then? Because Japan has never exactly had a preference for boys and has always had more girls than boys yet the birth rate, marriage rate is not that much higher than South Korea’s.

In the Khanate Korean women were highly-prized and paid for with their weight in gold.

I don't know Korean history and that sounds interesting.

In many countries historically, its the woman's family paying a dowry on marriage, partly because daughters did not inherit, sons did.

Mathematically that is wrong and only girls are born, because 0.82 x 1.0 boy = 1 girl. And empirically you just have a look at those Kpop 'boygroups' and see that this hypothesis is true. (Don't take it too seriously, of course it's only meant as a little joke)

Many youngsters don't want to get married nowadays.

@dagon

With my experience of Korean women, is that they are as evil as it comes. Devil reincarnate comes to mind!

South Korea’s fertility rate had dropped to 0.82 – the lowest fertility rate in the world

Like limbo, how low can you go?

Thank you for the interesting article. I will be paying more attention to this subject, in the future.

"Korean women are evil"? How so? In my experience it is not a good idea to get any woman mad at you, regardless of nationality.

Wars usually help restore imbalances like this as so many more men go off the fight. I'm not wishing that upon them but just illustrating how the situation could flip. If there ever is a reconciliation like Germany had back when the Berlin Wall fell, that could also help remedy or even possibly exacerbate the situation. Any data on North Korea?

Because Japan has never exactly had a preference for boys and has always had more girls than boys

For the years 1920 to 2020 in Japan always more boys have been born than girls.

Men die earlier than women for a number of reasons. They smoke more, they eat bad diets and drink too much; they retire from work and don't have anything to live for.

South Korea should just own it and be proud that the lifestyle sucks so much that no one wants to get married or have a family there. It is kind of a distinction.