Beyond a Strong State and Docile Women Reproductive choices,state policy and skewed sex ratio in South Korea

The rapid decrease in South Korea's fertility rate since the 1960s has often been noted as an extraordinary case of a demographic transition due to an extremely successful state population policy. This common observation fails to address how women actively and deliberately negotiated with different kinds of authorities within social and material constraints. The two most glaring examples of women's agency in reproductive decision making are (1) the consistently high abortion rate in a country where abortion has never been legal and (2) the persistent boy preference. The persistent boy preference combined with sex discerning technology, which became readily available in the 1980s, produced a skewed sex ratio at birth. Using Guttentag and Secord's theoretical model, this article explores how a broad range of cultural norms relating to women's roles, marriageable age, ethnic exogamy/endogamy and homosexuality will be affected when the birth cohorts of twenty years with the skewed sex ratio begin to enter the marriage market. This article also suggests a different way of thinking about the issues of women's reproductive behavior and state control. Population research often overlooks the thinking processes of individual women, and consequently misses how women negotiate with complex local conditions. This article discusses women' s reasoning and decision-making processes, their world views and values and dynamics within their intimate environments. Oftentimes women's own accounts defy clichéd understanding and popular imaginations.