Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Starla]

I was testing my students the other day. My co-teacher took the girls and I took the boys. I soon realized that in all of my classes, there were significantly more boys than girls. I decided to do some calculations and the ratio is 72:100 girls to boys. This is disturbing to say the least, especially since I was testing 5th graders. They were born a bit over a decade ago.

I'd be interested to know what the actual statistics are for different age groups and what effect this has had or is projected to have on the Korean population. I think it's a national embarrassment and I wonder if this has been openly discussed by anybody Korean the people on this site have met or by public figures in this country.

[sarbonn]

In 2007 of those 0-14 years old, they made up 18.3% of the population with male 4,714,103/female 4,262,873 totals.

[cdninkorea]

From what I've read, apparently selective sex abortion was an issue in the 80's and 90's. It is now illegal for the doctor to reveal the sex of the baby while it's in utero (although my students have told me it still happens sometimes).

What's interesting is that now a majority of married couples in Korea want a daughter, not a son: girls are viewed as more affectionate and more likely to remain close to her parents throughout their lives than sons. I wonder if people are aborting boys now instead?

[Lukychrm42]

Apart from the population ratio, I'd be interested to learn if more sons are sent to hagwons than daughters and generally given more educational resources.

(Except that from what I know, the majority of my kids are only children)...

[mnhnhyouh]

I am in an academic high school, students have to sit a test to get into the school, and they must have a good school record.

I teach all 15 of our 1 grade classes, and there are 9 girls classes, and 6 boys classes.

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[D.D.]

I teach one day a week in a elementary school and the ratio of boys to girls freaks me out. I thought China was the place where the girls were selected against.

[traxxe]

I teach at my university this semester the following majors:

Culinary Arts, Nursing, Air Travel & Flight Attendents, Chinese Tourism

Maybe... 15 guys.... 340 girls.

[bogey666]

[mnhnhyouh]

I know facts are often frowned upon on Dave's, but here are some anyway:

[billybrobby]

[samcheokguy]

Not if your school is 24 students. Gangwon is small.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

For Koreans below five or over 30 it's pretty even. Amongst kids age 10 to 20 the percentage is noticeable. There are about 450 middle school girls in my town and 500 middle school boys. Maybe five years from now would be a good time to start an infantry war.

[caniff]

[aboxofchocolates]

[weatherman]

www.nso.go.kr

go to the English page, and look up the data. It's there.