The Marmot’s Hole

The Dong-A Ilbo ran the results of a public opinion poll by the 21st Century Peace Foundation revealing changes in Koreans’ values over the last 10 years.  And here they are:

Public trust

Trust in the military and courts has decreased markedly, while faith in TV, the police and major corporations is on the rise.

Environmental groups earned the most public trust, with 71.7 percent.  This was down, however, from 84.6 in 1995.  Trust in women’s groups went down from 77.7 percent to 68.4 percent.  Trust in TV actually increased from 64.8 percent to 66.8 percent.  Trust in newspaper went down slightly from 67.3 percent to 64.3 percent.  Trust in civic groups decreased from 76.7 percent to 62.8 percent.  Trust in the police increased from 51.8 percent to 58.7 percent, while trust in the military dropped precipitously from 73.4 percent to 51.9 percent.  Trust in the court system dropped from 60.7 percent to 50.8 percent.  Trust in major corporations, however, increased from 37.0 percent to 50.2 percent.

There goes the neighborhood

The survey asked Koreans if they’d dislike having the following sorts of people as neighbors:

Drug addicts: 98.6 percent
AIDS patients: 93.5 percent
Ex-cons: 88.4 percent
Homosexuals: 87.3 percent
Alcoholics: 76.4 percent
Unmarried couples: 48.2 percent
Foreign laborers and immigrants: 38.7 percent
People of a different race: 36.5 percent

Bias against foreign laborers had decreased dramatically, with 62.8 of respondents saying they would not like to have foreign laborers as neighbors in 1995 and 50.0 percent in 2001, but only 38.7 percent said they’d dislike having Ahmed the Bengali factory worker as a neighbor in 2005.

Proud to be Korean, but not so eager to fight

Some 19.0 percent of respondents said they were very proud to be Korean, down from 20.6 percent in 2001.  69.6 percent said they tended to be proud of being Korean, up from 60.1 percent in 2001.  10.1 percent said they tended not to be proud of being Korean, down from 16.3 percent in 2001, while 1.2 percent said they weren’t proud at all of being Korean, down from 3.0 percent in 2001.

In particular, 90 percent of those in their 20s, 50s, 60s and above said they were proud of being Korean, while 80 percent of those in their 30s and 40s said they were proud of being Korean.

When asked whether they’d fight for Korea should a war break out, fewer respondents said yes. 72.7 percent said they’d fight for Korea should a war break out, with 81.7 percent of men answering in the affirmative.  This was down from 80.2 percent and 88.8 percent, respectively, in 1995.  Respondents in their 20s were relatively less enthusiastic about going off to war for Korea, with only 63.9 percent saying they would.  This was down from 77.9 percent in 1995.