Girl Shortage Bodes Ill for Future Korea

Throughout her checkup, Ko Myung-ok prayed she would be spared a fifth abortion. She was ecstatic when the test showed she could carry the fetus to term.

“Finally, it was a son. I felt as if I had plucked a star from the sky,” said Ko, 42.

Other women appearing with her on the recent morning TV talk show nodded and cooed sympathetically. The aborting of unwanted female fetuses is an open secret in this country where many women consider having a son a matter of duty.

For every 115.4 boys born in 1994, there were only 100 girls, giving South Korea the highest boys-to-girls birth ratio in the world, according to the Census Bureau’s most recent figures.

That translated into 30,000 female fetuses aborted that year because the mothers did not want a daughter, the Planned Parenthood Federation of Korea says.

“Perhaps we were more successful than we should have been,” said Park Soon-jung of Planned Parenthood, lamenting that his group’s success at getting families to limit children has resulted in the lopsided birth rates.

He predicts the skewed rates will continue unless an extensive campaign is waged to change Korean society’s preference for sons.

Critics blame the government, because it has turned a blind eye to the widespread use of abortions and of prenatal tests to determine the sex of a fetus--both of which are illegal in South Korea.

The situation mirrors that of China and other Asian countries where there is a strong traditional preference for sons. China’s imbalance peaked at 114 boys to 100 girls in 1989-90 but has been creeping downward since the government spoke out against the trend, its State Statistical Bureau says.

South Korea’s imbalance is the product of a vigorous and successful 35-year government campaign to restrain population growth by offering tax breaks for smaller families and free sterilization for parents.

Although South Korea has not imposed limits on family size as China has, most people have accepted the government’s view that it is better to have just one or two children and rear them well.

But while fertility has dramatically declined, the pressure to produce a male heir has persisted.

And many couples have acted on that preference, aided by medical innovations like ultrasound tests that can determine the sex of a fetus and by Korean society’s growing acceptance of abortion as a method of family planning.

Although abortions are illegal, most obstetricians are willing to perform them.

“Some of these women are so desperate it’s very hard to refuse,” said a physician who agreed to discuss the matter only if granted anonymity. “Everybody knows it’s illegal, but the law might as well not exist, because it’s broken so often.”

Responding to criticism of its inaction on the diverging birth rates, the Health Ministry announced that beginning in June it would revoke the licenses of doctors caught revealing the sex of fetuses.

But it is uncertain whether the crackdown will work. Many doctors already resort to non-direct means of informing patients about such things, such as being extra hearty in congratulating a mother-to-be on the healthiness of the fetus when it is a male.

An effort to change people’s desire for boys is also underway.

One poster shows a grinning bride in a traditional rainbow-colored wedding gown surrounded by eager suitors bearing gifts. “Where are the future wives?” it asks, making use of census projections that by 2010, there will be only four women reaching marrying age for every five men.

The campaign came too late for Kim Hong-shin, 30, whose inability to bear a son triggered a yearlong bout of depression.

On a humid, overcast day in May, Kim threw her 8-year-old and twin infant daughters off the balcony of their high-rise apartment. Then she climbed the railing and jumped to the asphalt below. All four died.

“Because I am the sole heir to the family line, she felt she had to produce a son,” her husband said in the police report. “She became more and more obsessive about it.”