Nearly 60% of South Koreans now support requiring young women to complete mandatory military service alongside their male counterparts, according to a recent survey.
The survey, conducted by the Reform Institute, the policy research arm of the conservative-leaning Reform Party, was published on August 20 and found just 34% of respondents opposed the change.
Nearly 65% of men supported mandatory service for women, a figure that climbed to 71.7% among men in their 20s and 30s, with 54.5% of women across all age groups expressing similar support.
The debate has re-emerged ahead of a national defense reform plan scheduled for release this autumn, driven by a falling birth rate and a shrinking pool of eligible male recruits.
According to the Defense Ministry, around 332,000 men were eligible for mandatory service in 2019, but that number fell to 257,000 by 2022 and is forecast to drop to just 120,000 by 2043.
Military Manpower Commissioner Hong So-young acknowledged in an August 9 interview with Yonhap News that the nation faces a “demographic cliff” and that reforms are urgently required.
Hong indicated the overhaul could include reducing exemptions and requiring foreign-born naturalized South Korean citizens to serve, though he made no direct comment on mandatory service for women.
“South Korea’s male-centered conscription system has long been closely connected to traditional gender roles,” said Hyobin Lee, a professor at Sogang University in Seoul.
Lee noted that shifting attitudes among young men are helping drive the conversation, as mandatory service in their early 20s interrupts their education and early career development.
“As a result, some younger men ask a very simple question: If society expects equality in rights and opportunities, why does one of the country’s most significant civic obligations – military service – still fall only on men?” Lee said.
Changing battlefield technology is also reshaping the debate, with unmanned systems, cyber capabilities, and information and communications technology reducing the emphasis on physical strength in military roles.
Despite supporting broader social equality, Professor Lee warns that adding compulsory service for women could increase an already disproportionate burden on them.
“Women in South Korea still bear a much greater share of the responsibilities associated with pregnancy, childbirth and childcare,” she said.
“Having a child can still lead to career interruption or withdrawal from the labor market, and women’s responsibilities for caregiving have not declined to the same extent that their participation in education and employment has increased,” Lee added.
“In a country that is already experiencing an extremely low birth rate, it is also possible that this additional compulsory obligation could further delay or discourage marriage and childbirth,” she warned.
Lee, whose grandfather served as a naval admiral and whose father also served in the same branch, said she would have personally struggled with compulsory service.
“Eighteen months in your 20s is a very significant period in a person’s life. It is a time when people are studying, beginning their careers, and making important personal choices,” she said.
Song Young-Chae, a Seoul-based academic and human rights activist who completed two years in the infantry, argued that investment in technology is preferable to conscripting women.
“I served along the Demilitarized Zone with North Korea, and it was a hard posting,” he said, adding that resources should be directed toward drones, robots, and other advanced military technologies instead.
The South Korean government established a task force to revise the nation’s basic defense plan, with troop modernization and an overhaul of the conscription system, introduced in the 1950s, listed as priorities.
