Half of Koreans won't date across the political aisle, survey says

Social Affairs

Half of Koreans won't date across the political aisle, survey says

Published: 05 Aug. 2024, 16:55 Updated: 05 Aug. 2024, 19:08

LIM JEONG-WON
lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr

[JOONGANG PHOTOS]

More than half of Koreans are unwilling to date someone they disagree with politically, a new survey showed Sunday.

The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (Kihasa) conducted a survey on social conflict and social integration on 3,950 men and women aged 19 to 75 from June to August last year, the results of which were revealed Sunday.

Nine out of 10 Koreans believe that political conflict between progressives and conservatives is severe.

According to the survey, 92.3 percent of the respondents said that political polarization and conflict were serious, a 5.3 percentage point increase from the 87 percent response to the same question in 2018.

This result regarding political conflict was higher than those who said that conflict between full-time workers and contract workers was serious, at 82.2 percent, those who said that labor-management conflict was serious, at 79.1 percent, and those who responded to whether conflict between the rich and poor was serious, at 78 percent.

Respondents also felt that conflict between large and small companies was serious at 71.8 percent and that regional conflict was serious at 71.5 percent.

The severity of political conflict was also evident in the responses to the question of willingness to date someone based on political affiliation. More than half of respondents, 58.2 percent, said they could not date or marry someone with a different political affiliation. This response was more common among women, at 60.9 percent, than men, at 53.9 percent, and more middle-aged and elderly people showed a higher aversion to the idea than young people.

Nearly a third of respondents said that they would not even go out drinking with friends or acquaintances if they had a different political affiliation, at 33 percent. Seventy-one point four percent said they would not participate in civic and social organization activities together if they had different political affiliations.

“To resolve conflicts, confrontations, tensions and antagonisms between members of society, public forums where people with different ideas and positions can meet and talk should be created and activated online and offline,” the report suggested.

Respondents gave social cohesion an average score of 4.2 on a scale of zero to 10. Social cohesion was 4.17 in 2018 and 2019, rising to 4.59 in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic before dropping to 4.32 in 2022 and falling again last year.

“Fighting a common enemy in the form of an infectious disease transformed the country into a cohesive society, but after the pandemic passed, cohesion declined again,” the report said.

Among institutions and organizations, people had high levels of trust in the health care system at 81.9 percent, financial institutions at 74.5 percent, large businesses at 69.9 percent and educational institutions at 67.7 percent.

On the other hand, respondents were less trusting of religious organizations, at 44.8 percent, prosecutors and the police at 44.8 percent, civic organizations at 42.2 percent, and the executive branch at 39.4 percent.

The courts, the media and unions scored lower on the trust questions, at 38.8 percent, 35.4 percent and 33.1 percent, respectively. The National Assembly ranked the lowest of all institutions and organizations surveyed, with only 21.1 percent of respondents saying they trusted it.

BY LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]