[WHY] 'Do this to conceive a daughter': Korea’s newfound obsession with baby girls

This article is by Sarah Chea and read by an artificial voice. Kim Chae-min, a 34-year-old newlywed trying to conceive, has made meat and fish staples of her diet while putting her husband on a decidedly greener regimen. Believe it or not, even sex is scheduled with precision. Their goal? Having a baby, and it "has to be a girl," in Kim's words. Lists promising ways to conceive baby girls are now ubiquitous across Korean social media, with Korean couples increasingly favoring daughters, a sharp cultural turn in a country once known for its deeply entrenched preference for sons. Doctors and practitioners of traditional Korean medicine have even introduced supposedly "scientific" tactics to encourage conceiving daughters, such as placing smartphones near the man's body. In fact, Korea ranked as the No. 1 country in daughter preference in a survey by Gallup International of roughly 45,000 people across 44 countries at the end of 2024, which asked whether respondents would prefer a boy, a girl, or no preference if they could have only one child. Some 28 percent of Koreans said they preferred to have a daughter, ahead of Japan, Spain and the Philippines at 26 percent and Bangladesh at 24 percent. By comparison, only 15 percent of Koreans said they preferred having a son, with the remaining respondents stating they had no preference. It's a striking reversal over just three decades, as the same survey conducted in 1992 showed that 58 percent of Koreans preferred a son over a daughter. Q. Why does it have to be a girl? For many young couples, the answer is instinctive rather than ideological. Daughters, they say, stay closer — they call more, notice more, stay more emotionally present. Sons are often described, half-jokingly, as harder to read and easier to drift away. There is also a practical layer. In many households, child care is supported by the wife's parents. Family life often runs through the maternal line — so a daughter feels more like continuity and less like departure. Overall, women show a strong preference for daughters: In the Gallup survey, nearly half of Korean women in their 30s and 40s said they would choose a daughter. The old case for sons in Korea was mostly practical — children were expected to support aging parents financially. But that assumption has faded sharply, and today, few parents expect any financial support at all. Their expectations have instead shifted elsewhere, toward emotional closeness. "Young people's economic capacity is too weak for parents to expect any financial support anymore," said Prof. Kim Yun-tae, who teaches public sociology at Korea University. "That removes the old reason for preferring sons. What remains is emotional connection like daughters who check in more often, talk more, stay closer." In a survey by Hanyang University on 125 primary caregivers of dementia patients in 2023, 82.4 percent were women, compared to just 17.6 percent men. Similarly, daughters made up the largest share of family caregivers at 42.4 percent, ahead of daughters-in-law at 16.8 percent, who even surpass the families' own sons at 15.2 percent. Are there other social issues at play? Like low birth rates? Yes, it also ties directly into Korea's deeper demographic problem of low birthrates. As more young couples decide to have only one child — or none at all — the "if it's just one, make it a girl" mindset becomes more pronounced. Korea's fertility rate fell to 0.8 in 2025, among the lowest in the world. Around 62 percent of adults of 1,000 people agreed that "having at least one daughter is necessary" compared to 36 percent for sons in a 2024 Hankook Research survey. "I wasn't even sure I wanted kids, but my husband and I decided on one, and now, we're just hoping it's a girl," said Yoo, a 32-year-old engineer in Gyeonggi. "I won't have a second baby for sure — and I keep hesitating in case it turns out to be a boy." Another factor is how much family life itself has changed. Unlike in the past, whe...