The fact that over 42% of Koreans in their 30s are now unmarried was the subject of an extensive reddit discussion.

Korean women said "it's not housing prices, it's misogyny." That if they stay single they only need to earn money for themselves and care for themselves, but if they get married they need to earn money, be a housewife, have kids and take care of the kids and care for the in-laws.

This doesn't sound much different than the rest of the world, except it's so bad in South Korea, it has actually given birth to a feminist movement called 4b, which calls for no dating, no sex, no marriage, and no child-rearing.

Korean men in the thread complained that "girls have extremely high expectations, and want men with at least 50k usd income a year. "

Many struggle to see a connection between those two arguments. But to me the picture is clear.

  • If Korean women marry a poor man, society expects them to essentially become his slave and the slave of his family, while working their ass off.
  • If they marry a rich one, they at least won't have to work on top of doing everything else.

Their "extremely high expectations", which many men have lambasted in that particular thread, are actually saving them from a fate which honestly sounds worse than death.

Worse thing that happens is they don't get married or have children, which is clearly no loss in that particular situation.

According to the article:

Last year, South Korea's total fertility rate ― the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime ― hit a record low of 0.84, much lower than the replacement level of 2.1 that would keep South Korea's population stable.

Educated women with access to contraception will not have kids in a misogynistic society. You'd think someone would have figured it out by now, but no, "it's the housing prices".

Other cultures know this, which is why they try to keep women away from both.