Can Once-Imbalanced Sex Ratio at Birth Become Balanced? A Case of South Korea

Youngtae Cho , Seoul National University
Woorim Ko, Seoul National University
Hanna Kim, Seoul National University

There have been a number of studies on SRB imbalance, and most of them have paid attention to the emergence of the new case, country specific causes of son preference, and the possible social problems induced by this phenomenon. Since the case of reversed SRB has neither observed nor reported yet, demographers have not been able to come up with policy recommendations that can solve or at least ease the tendency of son preference and distorted SRB. authors found astonishing statistics that we are able to counter-argue that Korea now experiences totally reversed and balanced SRB since 2014. According to Statistics Korea, the SRBs at higher birth orders as well as the average have been around 104~106 for 4 continued years. We will discuss causes of reverse in SRB from imbalance to balance mainly focusing on the cultural and structural characteristics.

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 Presented in Session 10. Fertility, Family Planning, Sexual Behavior & Reproductive Health 2