This past summer, I took a seven-week trip to South Korea — my first time visiting the motherland since I was fourteen. Everything was the same. Clusters of apartments surrounded by huge, lush forests; the lady selling tofu from her stand on Wednesdays; and there were — as always — ads for everything plastered on big screens and bus stops. But the closer I looked, the more I began to notice that these weren’t the typical glass-skin injection billboards or soju ads featuring Korean celebrities. It seemed that for every three flyers, there was one advertising childbirth. Even in the elevators, AI-generated videos of happy families played on the small screens, with captions like: “families make a strong nation” or “a life is a gift.”
It’s no secret that South Korea’s birth rate has been declining at an alarming rate for the past few years. In 2023, Korea hit a record low of a birth rate of 0.72 children per woman. For reference, the global average birth rate that year was 2.3. By the end of the century, the country is projected to lose around 30 percent of its population, and over 50 percent of the remaining population will be senior citizens.
Following its technological boom in the 1960s, South Korea has achieved considerable global influence and economic stability. As the population crisis persists, it begs the question: How can South Korea sustain this economic growth without the support of Korean women?
Astounding rates of gender discrimination in South Korea are one of the biggest drivers of the country’s declining population. South Korean women, tired of lagging behind in women’s rights, have begun pushing back against this discrimination with the radical 4B movement: bihon (no marriage); bichulsan (no childbirth); biyeonae (no dating); bisekseu (no sex). To an outsider, this may seem extreme. For Korean women, however, refusing marriage and motherhood is a perfectly rational protest to this inequitable culture. The 4B movement doesn’t just address discrimination in certain parts of Korean society — rather, it forces the country to reckon with the consequences of a society where women are so disenfranchised they refuse to participate in systems that exploit their reproductive rights.
Women in South Korea, whether married or not, face alarming rates of gender based violence and discrimination, especially at work. Approximately one in four Korean women have faced intense workplace discrimination, with around 27 percent of women reporting workplaces forbidding marriage, childbirth and even dating. On paper, the government outlaws blatant discrimination such as direct termination due to pregnancy, and offers protections like a mandated 90-day maternity leave, but this is not always enforced, and is just the bare minimum.
Workplace culture continues to pressure women into leaving their jobs after entering into romantic relationships, so the employers do not have to risk losing an employee to maternity leave and motherhood. The deeply misogynistic culture is ingrained in the average workplace even after, where women still make 65 percent of what their male counterparts make, rendering these laws performative and ineffective. Social punishment functions as a more effective pressure than any law created by the government. As a result, many Korean women see the idea of having and raising children in this culture as a complete nightmare.
The effects of this discriminatory social pressure are increasingly evident: This unspoken campaign to push women out of the workforce has already destabilized the social and economic infrastructures on which South Korea is built. Until we address the underlying issue of gender-based discrimination, Korea’s economy and population cannot — and should not — continue to grow. This is why the 4B movement is so impactful: It has already generated considerable pressure on the government’s capacities and the country’s future, and there’s no sign of it slowing down. Refusing to buy into a culture that pigeonholes women into mothers, 4B allows them to reclaim their agency with a statement of collective power.
Internally, South Korea is panicking. The government is pumping out natalist propaganda left and right, even offering monetary incentives. Meanwhile, the entertainment industry creates media en masse, preaching one not-so-hidden message: Motherhood is a beautiful experience. Women are not refusing motherhood out of convenience, but for protection; no amount of propaganda or financial coercion will reverse South Korea’s self-sabotage. For women not just in Korea, but around the world, the 4B movement is an exercise of personal autonomy and power.
Like many other Korean Americans, I am proud of my culture and of its growing presence in America. Southern California is a hotspot for Korean communities and culture, and it feels like home to the thousands of us who never got the chance to experience life in Korea. Choice may seem like a simple concept — but for Korean women, our future choices clearly drive concrete demographic shifts. The government, which once turned a blind eye to the needs of women, is now seeing the 4B movement as important enough to invest against with propaganda and monetary incentives.
The 4B movement is proof that women hold an undeniable source of power: the capacity to control the future of a country’s economic and social future through their reproductive choices. Young women around the globe — including those of us at the 5Cs — can learn from South Korea and recognize that, even amidst moments of frustration or fatigue in the feminist movement, we have far more power than we are conditioned to believe.
The solution is not to urge women to wake up and start pumping out more babies. The real solution, for Korea as well as every other culture rooted in the patriarchy, lies in following the footsteps of the 4B movement — taking deliberate action to dismantle the deeply rooted misogyny that devalues women. Until women are not treated simply as tools for the process of growth, the birth rate will continue to fall, affecting Korea’s rich culture and global presence. At this rate, we may be waving goodbye to the BTSs and Squid Games of the future. Who’s going to sing in a boy group when over half the population is 60 years old?
Ansley Kang SC ’29, saw more dogs riding in strollers than babies during her time in Korea.
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