Sex ratio imbalance at birth in South Korea

Sex ratio imbalance at birth in South Korea was both a measurable demographic distortion and a sign of the son preference that shaped family decisions and public institutions. In Kim Jiyoung’s story, the imbalance appears first in the fate of an unborn sister, then in the changing makeup of schools; its wider context is a society in which boys are routinely given priority and women bear disproportionate costs in work and family life.

Causes and Scale

Government birth-control programs described as family planning operated alongside widespread sex-selective abortion. Although abortion for medical reasons had been legal for a decade, identifying a fetus’s sex and ending pregnancies because the fetus was female had become common. The imbalance continued through the 1980s and reached its height in the early 1990s: for third children and beyond, the ratio exceeded two boys for every girl.

The national figures show a marked departure from the natural range. In 1982, the year Kim Jiyoung was born, 106.8 boys were born for every 100 girls; by 1990 the figure had risen to 116.5. The expected natural ratio is approximately 103 to 107 boys per 100 girls. The gap thus records more than ordinary variation: it reflects a period when son preference was expressed through decisions about which pregnancies would continue.

A Family History of Son Preference

When Oh Misook became pregnant with a third child, her husband dismissed her concern rather than sharing responsibility for it. She went to a clinic alone and had an abortion after learning the fetus was female. The decision’s emotional and physical burden fell on her, without family support. A doctor offered the compassion she had not received at home, helping her endure the experience. Years later, Oh Misook became pregnant again and gave birth to a son, Kim Jiyoung’s brother, who was five years younger than her.

This family history gives the demographic pattern an intimate consequence without making Oh Misook responsible for the conditions around her. The pressures came from a society that treated a daughter as a reason to end a pregnancy, while leaving the woman who underwent the procedure to bear its consequences. The later birth of a boy does not undo the earlier loss; the two pregnancies sit within the same family history of son preference.

From Birth Ratios to School Order

The rising number of boys also affected school provision. As male student numbers increased, schools could not accommodate them adequately. Coeducational schools already had roughly twice as many boys’ classes as girls’ classes, and assigning pupils to distant single-sex schools made less practical sense when nearby schools existed. Kim Jiyoung’s school became coeducational the year she entered, and other schools in the area followed over the next few years.

The numerical imbalance formed part of a larger pattern of ordinary preference. At school, boys led processions, presented first, and had their homework checked first; girls waited. Class monitor elections also favored boys: in Kim Jiyoung’s class, boys were elected in all six elections from fourth through sixth grade, even though teachers and students often regarded girls as more capable, mature, and attentive to detail. These routines did not necessarily appear strange to the pupils. Their everyday repetition made male priority seem natural, just as official identification conventions assigned men and women different starting numbers.

Gendered Costs Beyond the Classroom

The book places the birth imbalance within a broader gender hierarchy, while showing that the later disadvantages women face are not simply direct effects of birth statistics. In higher education and employment, women’s credentials did not guarantee equal access. Kim Jiyoung’s friend Yun Hyejin, who had stronger qualifications than Jiyoung across several measures, doubted that either would find secure employment. At job fairs, Jiyoung noticed that the alumni representatives she encountered were men. In 2005, women made up 29.6 percent of new hires at 100 companies; a separate survey found that 44 percent of recruiting managers at large corporations preferred male candidates with equivalent qualifications, while none preferred women.

Recruitment practices could reinforce that preference behind closed doors. Departments sometimes received informal requests for candidates and recommended male students, with little transparency about whether the company or the department had initiated the restriction. One highly qualified graduate discovered that four male students had been put forward for interviews for a position she wanted. When she challenged the decision, she was given explanations based on employers’ apparent preference for men, their military service, or the idea that they would become heads of households. In this setting, son preference and male priority recur as a social logic, though the hiring practices are a distinct form of discrimination.

Family Decisions and Unequal Care

That logic also shaped decisions about marriage and children. When Kim Jiyoung and Jung Daehyun completed their marriage paperwork, the form asked whether their child would take the mother’s surname and family origin, making patrilineal inheritance an explicit choice rather than an invisible assumption. Later, when they discussed having a child, Jiyoung worried about bodily change and whether she could sustain both childcare and a career. Their parents could not provide care, and both spouses worked late and on weekends. Daehyun offered to help with diapers and feeding, but Jiyoung asked what he would give up in return. She named her youth, health, work, colleagues, social networks, career plans, and future; his anticipated losses centered on time with friends, work dinners, and household responsibilities, along with his role as financial provider.

As the birth approached, the couple compared three possibilities on a large sheet of paper: an immediate return to work, a return after a year of maternity leave, or no return. Sending the child to Daehyun’s parents in Busan was not feasible because they were elderly and his mother had recently undergone back surgery. A live-in nanny raised concerns about cost and sharing the household. They concluded that one parent would have to stay home, and Jiyoung was the one expected to do so because Daehyun’s job was more stable and paid more, and because wives were more commonly expected to raise children and manage the home.

The division persisted even when daycare became available. When Jung Jiwon began attending shortly after her first birthday, she adapted well and spent mornings at the center. Kim Jiyoung had about three hours between drop-off and pick-up, most of which went to laundry, dishes, tidying, and preparing food. The novel also cites a comparison of mothers’ available time: a stay-at-home mother with a child under two averaged four hours and ten minutes a day to herself, while a mother whose child attended daycare averaged four hours and twenty-five minutes. The small difference underscores that childcare does not by itself release mothers from domestic work; it often changes whether the work is done alongside the child.

Wider Significance

Across these episodes, the imbalance is part of a continuum of gendered expectations, not an isolated statistical anomaly. The same preference for male priority appears in family decisions, classroom routines, opaque recruitment, and the allocation of care. Women’s employment could depend on resisting expectations that they perform minor tasks or prove they could endure practices men did not take on. Kim Eunsil, who returned to work a month after giving birth in order to be accepted as one of the men, later recognized that her example had helped establish a damaging precedent. As a manager, she removed unnecessary work dinners and retreats and guaranteed maternity and paternity leave.

The narrative’s account therefore moves between aggregate ratios and decisions made in particular rooms: a clinic, a classroom, an office, a couple’s dining table. The figures establish the scale of the birth imbalance; the recurring institutions and family negotiations show how male priority could be normalized well beyond birth. The pattern’s significance lies in this connection between demographic selection and the broader distribution of recognition, opportunity, and unpaid responsibility.