Koreans pick more girls for adoption

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Koreans pick more girls for adoption

A survey result by an international adoption agency shows that the preference is definitely in favor of girls in the Korean adoption circle, reversing the country’s ingrained tendency to opt for boys.

Holt International Children’s Services said that boys make up only 32 percent of all children adopted by Koreans through the agency last year.

The male proportion has constantly decreased from 37 percent in 2009 to 35 percent in 2010.

It further dropped to 32 percent in 2011.

The recent trend declares a clear departure from a long-running gender preference for boys prevalent from the 1970s through the early ’90s.

Among adopted children in Korea from 1971 to 1975, 62.7 percent were boys while boys account for 55.3 percent in 1981 through 85. In the early 1990s, males still held the majority.

The data before 1970 is hard to come by, but it’s safe to say that boys were more in demand, influenced by traditional Confucianism that emphasizes the role of the eldest son and males in family and society.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health and Welfare found that the proportion of local male children adopted by overseas people reached 69 percent, the highest in 10 years.

By Park Eun-jee [ejpark@joongang.co.kr]
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