Gender Discrimination in Sex Selective Abortions and its Transition in South Korea

Despite increased economic growth and social development, gender relations in South Korea have not progressed much. This may be due to an existing Confucian dogma in Korean society, which accords women a subordinate status. One insidious example of this gender discrimination is female selective abor...

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Main Authors: Chun, H., Das Gupta, M.
Format: Journal Article
Language:EN
Published: 2012
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5205
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spelling okr-10986-52052021-04-23T14:02:21Z Gender Discrimination in Sex Selective Abortions and its Transition in South Korea Chun, H. Das Gupta, M. Despite increased economic growth and social development, gender relations in South Korea have not progressed much. This may be due to an existing Confucian dogma in Korean society, which accords women a subordinate status. One insidious example of this gender discrimination is female selective abortion and the resulting imbalanced sex ratio. This article reviews the trends in the sex ratio at birth in Korea, and the cultural underpinnings of the preference for sons. Using evidence from successive surveys. it then demonstrates how attitudes have changed over time. Finally. it examines how the relaxation of the traditional attitude of a preference for male children is accompanied by reduced attention to other traditional beliefs, such as attending to auspicious birth years for female children. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 2012-03-30T07:31:47Z 2012-03-30T07:31:47Z 2009 Journal Article Womens Studies International Forum 0277-5395 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5205 EN http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Journal Article Korea, Republic of
repository_type Digital Repository
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institution Digital Repositories
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collection World Bank
language EN
geographic_facet Korea, Republic of
relation http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo
description Despite increased economic growth and social development, gender relations in South Korea have not progressed much. This may be due to an existing Confucian dogma in Korean society, which accords women a subordinate status. One insidious example of this gender discrimination is female selective abortion and the resulting imbalanced sex ratio. This article reviews the trends in the sex ratio at birth in Korea, and the cultural underpinnings of the preference for sons. Using evidence from successive surveys. it then demonstrates how attitudes have changed over time. Finally. it examines how the relaxation of the traditional attitude of a preference for male children is accompanied by reduced attention to other traditional beliefs, such as attending to auspicious birth years for female children. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
format Journal Article
author Chun, H.
Das Gupta, M.
spellingShingle Chun, H.
Das Gupta, M.
Gender Discrimination in Sex Selective Abortions and its Transition in South Korea
author_facet Chun, H.
Das Gupta, M.
author_sort Chun, H.
title Gender Discrimination in Sex Selective Abortions and its Transition in South Korea
title_short Gender Discrimination in Sex Selective Abortions and its Transition in South Korea
title_full Gender Discrimination in Sex Selective Abortions and its Transition in South Korea
title_fullStr Gender Discrimination in Sex Selective Abortions and its Transition in South Korea
title_full_unstemmed Gender Discrimination in Sex Selective Abortions and its Transition in South Korea
title_sort gender discrimination in sex selective abortions and its transition in south korea
publishDate 2012
url http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5205
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