Are ‘hyper-meritocracy’ and feminist backlash driving South Korean young men to the right?

This story by Yewon Kang originally appeared on Global Voices on January 10, 2026.

It can be difficult to define what “conservative” or “right-wing populist” means, as the boundaries have blurred with other terms such as “far right” or “alt-right.” These terms also vary by region and historical context. Moreover, it is nearly impossible to categorize men in their 20s or 30s under a single ideological label.

Despite this ambiguity, numerous studies have shown that South Korean young men aged 18 to 29 have unquestionably shifted to the right more than any other global demographic, with some even moving toward the far-right in support of agendas including anti-feminist and anti-redistributive policies, resulting in one of the widest ideological gaps between young men and women in the world.

Deepening Korea's gender divide

After South Korea’s snap presidential election in June 2025, a voter survey was conducted by a local research company, Hankook Research, and a news magazine, Sisa In, in collaboration with academic experts. Over 2,000 voters aged 18 and older completed up to 239 questionnaires on post-election voting preferences and their views on democracy, the economy, and social issues.

The results clearly showed that South Korean young men were more conservative than other groups, particularly on issues of feminism, redistributive policies, and attitudes toward migrants and refugees, according to John Kuk, a political studies professor at Michigan State University who helped design the survey questionnaires. 

For example, in response to the question, “Do you agree with a gender quota system for high public positions?” 71 percent of men aged 18-29 said they either strongly or moderately disagreed, while 63 percent of their female counterparts strongly or moderately agreed.

In response to the statement, “There needs to be a movement that honors masculinity and advocates for men’s rights,” 47 percent of men aged 18–29 said they strongly or moderately agreed, while 53 percent of men in their 30s said the same. In comparison, 68 percent and 72 percent of their female counterparts, respectively, strongly or moderately disagreed with the statement. 

However, it was also evident that the majority of the Korean young men remained committed to democracy and did not embrace authoritarian views or conspiracy theories promoted by far-right wing populists, Kuk added.

For example, in response to the statement, “Because liberal democracy in Korea is in crisis, it may be possible to use force in order to save it,” 61 percent of men aged 18–29 strongly or moderately disagreed. Regarding the statement, “Do you have suspicions that the voting process in this presidential election was rigged to benefit a particular candidate?” 52 percent of men aged 18–29 and 62 percent of men in their 30s, respectively, strongly or moderately disagreed.

The presidential election this past June confirmed the shift of young men to the right. The snap election was held following the impeachment and removal of former President Yoon Suk Yeol. As a result, the majority of votes (37.2 percent) from men aged 18 to 29 went to Lee Jun-seok, a candidate who broke away from Yoon with his own conservative party, the Reform Party. Their second choice (36.9 percent) was a candidate from the ruling conservative party, to which the former impeached President Yoon belonged.

On the other hand, roughly 58 percent of their female counterparts voted for Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party. Additionally, nearly six percent of women in their 20s supported the Democratic Labor Party candidate Kwon Young-kook, even though his overall nationwide vote share was less than 1 percent.

This trend goes further back. Already in 2014, The Financial Times reported South Korea has one of the world’s extreme gender polarization rates, largely due to young men’s significant skew to the right compared with other high-income countries, including the US, Germany, and the UK.

Korea's manosphere shapes politics and policy

One might then ask what lies behind the extreme divergence among Korean young men. One indisputable factor that unites many of them is anti-feminist sentiment. A term was coined to refer to them, “Idaenam” (이대남), which is a shortened word that literally means men in their 20s. 

Since the 1950s, South Korea’s feminists have fought for equal opportunity for women in politics, education, and beyond. The latest wave of feminist activism, led mainly by the Millennial and Gen Z women, gained traction around 2016 after a man killed a 23-year-old woman at a public bathroom near the Gangnam subway station. The killer intentionally targeted a woman, as he later testified that “women usually ignored me.” 

The femicide triggered a wave of women showing up to mourn and offer condolences, as well as a collective uproar and uptick in feminist activism. At the same time, it prompted many young men to express resentment and counterargue that the murder was not a femicide but a crime of a man with a mental illness. 

Instead of engaging in public discussions about the country’s deep-rooted patriarchy, structural discrimination and misogyny, and violence against women, debates on feminist issues were reduced to a mere “men vs. women” or “us vs. them” framework. 

In a Zoom interview with Global Voices, Lee Han, a co-founder and activist with “Feminism with Him,” a Korean non-profit organization that teaches feminism to men, said:

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Jang Jaeuk, a 22-year-old male university student, shared Lee’s observation during a phone interview with Global Voices: 

Jang also pointed out that anonymous online forums have fostered a culture in which blatant misogynistic, racist, and sexist jokes and comments are normalized, so that even primary school students consume them as just another meme. 

In addition, young men usually exchange banter and information on anonymous online forums such as “Ilbe” and “FM Korea,” which have eventually grown into a Korean manosphere spaces that exert a tangible influence on politicians and policymaking in the country.

For instance, targeting the anti-feminism sentiment of young male voters, former President Yoon infamously declared, “Structural sexism does not exist anymore,” and won the presidency in 2022 with a leading campaign promise to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.

Lee explains why young women, who are equally exposed to the online echo chamber, have not necessarily shifted to the right:

Another underlying factor behind many Gen Z men’s blatant hostility toward marginalized groups and redistribution policies has to do with meritocracy.

Meritocracy glorifies earned advantage and claims to transform the elite to suit a democratic age — essentially redeeming the very idea of hierarchy, according to Daniel Markovitz, a professor at Yale Law School, in his 2019 book, “The Meritocracy Trap.” 

The book argues that merit in today’s meritocratic system disguises elite privileges as “fairly earned” results of individual hard work while deliberately ignoring structural inequality. And this is, if anything, even more true in South Korea than in America or other developed countries.

From preschool and K-12 education to university entrance, standardized tests dominate admissions and employment decisions in the country — creating a narrow measure of merit that determines access to universities, corporate jobs, and professional or public positions in fields such as law, education, media, and civil service.

Meritocracy is also legitimized in the Korean Constitution, which states: “All citizens have the right to receive an equal education according to their abilities.” 

For private education, Korean K-12 households spent a total of KRW 29.2 trillion (about USD 20 billion) in 2024, the highest on record despite the declining number of children in the country, according to the Ministry of Data and Statistics. Since 2007, private education spending has increased by about 46 percent. On average, households spend about KRW 5.7 million (about USD 3,900) per child annually, placing an enormous financial burden on families across all income levels, though the burden is especially heavy for lower-income households.  

The following statistics help explain why Korean families, regardless of their income level, obsessively invest in their children’s private education: entering prestigious K-12 schools and graduating from the top three universities guarantee top positions across all fields in society.

Almost 63 percent of the judicial positions, just counting judges, are held by graduates of the so-called SKY universities — Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University — which are considered the three most prestigious institutions in the country, according to 2018–2021 data provided by Korea’s Supreme Court. One in every three National Assembly representatives is a SKY alumnus, according to 2018-2020 data analyzed by a local newspaper, Hankyung. And nearly half of the CEOs of the top 500 domestic companies by market capitalization are SKY graduates, according to data released this year by CEO Score, a local data analytics firm.     

Park Kwonil, a journalist and author of the book “Korean Meritocracy,” discusses Koreans’ obsession with “fairness” and merit, noting that it is not just a trait of today’s young people but a deeply ingrained disposition within Korean society. Park wrote:

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Young Koreans face a dissonance between the democratic values taught in schools and society’s prevailing norms, making them more prone to distrust and cynicism toward the older generation’s hypocrisy, Park added in an email interview.

He claims that young Koreans’ rigid belief in meritocracy — “hyper-meritocracy” as he calls it — justifies discrimination and contempt toward the less capable.

The hyper-meritocracy or “every man for himself” ethos, prevalent among Koreans, especially men, is mirrored in a Hankook Research survey showing rising support for anti-redistributive policies.

The respondents were asked to choose which of two statements they agree with more: “Individuals should take more responsibility for their own welfare” or “The government should take more responsibility for the welfare of citizens.” Among men in their 20s, more than half (54 percent) sided with individual responsibility over state welfare, making them the only age-gender group to do so. In comparison, 73 percent of women in their 20s favored social welfare over individual responsibility.

Regarding the current disability quota policy for government and public positions, just about 47 percent of men in their 20s and 30s supported it, making them the least supportive group among all demographics. Opposition among men was nearly as high at 33 percent for those in their 20s and 47 percent for those in their 30s. In contrast, 71 percent of women in their 20s and 68 percent of women in their 30s supported the quota system. 

As meritocracy became an unquestioned social creed, it has fueled a culture of casual hate expressed through banter, jokes, or entertainment, Park added.

Socioeconomic or merit-based hate speech has become deeply entrenched among young people on online forums in recent years. These people often show intense hostility toward affirmative action or policies aimed at supporting marginalized groups, arguing that helping those “without ability” amounts to reverse discrimination or free-riding.

Oh Eunchan, a 24-year-old student at Korea University, told Global Voices that he witnessed a hyper-meritocratic culture among his peers on campus.

Oh often witnessed his peers at his university belittling their peers at its Sejong campus, where entrance scores are lower, and trying to distance themselves from them. 

Jang, the 22-year-old who attends Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, echoed this observation, highlighting the rampant meritocratic discrimination and hostility. He observes that on campus, it is very common to hear conversations mocking or degrading marginalized groups — the disabled, women, migrants — without any critical reflection amongst the students themselves:

Since 2021, a local disability rights activist group called Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination (SADD) has staged a series of protests for the mobility rights of people with disabilities. One of their most well-known actions involved SADD members in wheelchairs attempting to board the metro train simultaneously during the morning rush hour, causing delays and inconvenience for commuters. However, rather than engaging in negotiations with the activists to discuss ways to improve the city’s barrier-free metro system, the mayor of Seoul has consistently relied on police forces to remove the demonstrators and even sued the activists for their “illegal” activities. 

What is striking is the adverse reaction to the SADD protests, even contempt, from many Seoulites. Hankook Research conducted a separate survey in 2022 to assess citizens’ opinions on the SADD protest. The survey asked, “How do you evaluate the way that SADD conducted the protest?” Half of the respondents, either strongly or moderately, agreed with the statement, “Even if their claim is absolutely legitimate, I cannot understand it at all, because it has caused disturbance to others.”   

Lee from Feminism With Him said that this hatred toward vulnerable groups is tied to hegemonic masculinity, which is appropriated by politicians or influencers to gain popular support:

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