Political Polarization and Gender Gap in South Korea

The 2022 presidential election in Korea saw a significant swing of young men toward the conservative candidate Yoon Suk-yeol, which was decisive for his electoral victory. This unprecedented electoral volatility created a gendered division among young voters, who had previously been a solid progressive voting block supporting the centre-left party. Drawing on this critical episode in Korean electoral politics, my paper examines emerging political polarization among young Koreans. Despite growing literature on political polarization in Korea, scant attention has been paid to age and generational effects. Analyzing post-election surveys by the Korea Social Science Data Centre (KSDC) and the East Asia Institute (EAI), the paper investigates changing patterns of the whole and young electorates across key issues, ideologies, and affective polarization. The paper argues that an emerging gender gap among young people in Korea is evident, with young men increasingly adopting a conservative stance on key issues, including modern sexism. The paper makes two significant contributions to the literature on political polarization and right-wing populism. First, it brings young people and the age/generation effect to the forefront of the growing literature on political polarization in Korea, an area previously overlooked. Second, it contributes to the literature on right-wing populism by demonstrating how young people—traditionally less likely to support right-wing populism—can become highly susceptible to its appeal over a relatively short span of time. By doing so, the paper aims to shed light on the growing gender divide emerging in advanced economies.