How Mandatory Military Service Can Divide Rather Than Unite: Conscription,Gender,and Military Trust in South Korea 2003

Abstract

Can mandatory military service increase confidence in the state across the population when only men are required to serve? To answer this question, we leverage the case of South Korea to examine how male-only conscription influences trust toward a critical state institution, the military. Based on the foreign policy opinion literature on the gender gap, we hypothesize that women hold different views of the military and respond in distinct ways to conscription. Analysis of public opinion data from 2003 to 2021 shows that women generally exhibit less trust in the military than men. Male conscription also has diverging effects along gender lines for parents of sons who must serve, increasing distrust of the military for their mothers while not affecting fathers. The findings suggest that mandatory military service can (further) divide opinions of the military across society.

Keywords

civil–military relations Asia military trust conscription Korea gender gap

Introduction

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, publicly warned in 2015 about a “growing disconnect between the American people and our military” (Fallows, 2015). Partly to remedy this gap, US Secretary of Defense (and former Senator) Chuck Hagel called for a national debate on mandatory military service in the same year. Other nations have since been engaged in similar debates about compulsory service. In the 2017 French presidential election, Emmanuel Macron vowed to reinstitute a service national universal to promote a sense of civic duty and national unity among the population.¹ Senior politicians in the United Kingdom and Germany have made similar calls (Deutsche Welle 2018; The Times 2020).

Military service as a means to instill common political values across the population and align views between the military and civilians has a long history (Posen, 1993; Weber, 1976). More recently, with growing political polarization in many democracies, there has been renewed attention on the role that mandatory military service can play in forging unity among citizens and closing the distance between the public and the state. Of particular interest is whether military service can act as a conduit for instilling pride and confidence in a country’s institutions, thereby furthering political cohesion and stability.² How does mandatory service affect confidence in a nation’s military and key political institutions?

Scholars remain divided on conscription’s peacetime effect on citizens’ views of politics and the state. On the one hand, some argue that the military as a “school for the nation” can foster loyalty to the state by instilling a national identity and sense of common purpose among those who serve (De Juan et al., 2021; George & Teigen, 2008; Levi, 1997; Moskos, 1988). Mandatory military service can also bridge the civil–military gap when civic virtues associated with public service reach those who do not serve in the military (Krebs, 2004; Leander, 2004). Conversely, others posit that military service forges an identity that prioritizes the military and its interests at the cost of loyalty to the state and confidence in its other institutions (Kadercan, 2013; Rhodes, 1995; Rosen, 1995). Military service, according to this logic, is detrimental to societal unity and confidence in the state.

Whether peacetime military service is conducive to broader trust in a country’s institutions or harmful to it, the assumption in the literature is that compulsory service bolsters the population’s confidence in the military. Often overlooked, however, is that even nations require mandatory time in the armed forces make exemptions for some of the population. If the subject of interest is the effect national service has on unity and a shared sense of duty across the population, the role conscription has on those who are exempt from service requires scrutiny. Diverging views between those who serve and those who do not on views of the military and key state institutions, for example, could leave the country more divided than before.

In particular, the role of gender in how compulsory military service influences views of the state merits attention. The public opinion literature has consistently shown a gender gap in opinions on war, defense spending, and negotiations as a means to resolve conflicts (Conover & Sapiro, 1993; Eichenberg, 2016; Eichenberg & Stoll, 2012). The consistency and breadth of these findings suggest that women could hold different views of the military and respond in diverging ways to conscription compared with men. However, evidence on the extent to which conscription’s effect reaches the broader population and how it affects women’s opinions is surprisingly thin.

In this article, we show how requiring only men to serve divides the opinions of men and women regarding the military further apart rather than unifying them. To do so, we leverage the case of South Korea. Seoul has had a policy of mandatory time in uniform for all men since the 1950s. Women have never been required to serve. Virtually every adult male serves in the military and such close ties between the military and society in a high-threat security environment make South Korea a useful case for examining the effect mandatory service has on trust in the military and the state. The long history of conscription in the Korean case also allows us to test the long-term consequences of mandatory military service, in contrast to the many studies examining the effect of introducing or terminating conscription policy.

While gauging the effect of any compulsory system is problematic because there is often no variation among people subject to the requirement, we overcome this obstacle by utilizing the random nature of a child’s gender in assigning the conscription “treatment.” This empirical strategy is possible because only males are subject to mandatory military service. The random “assignment” of conscription is achieved not by selecting who serves but from the random process through which a child’s gender is determined, given the number of children parents have. We then estimate the impact that having a son subject to compulsory service has on the opinions of mothers and fathers relative to having a daughter (exempt from service).

Adopting this approach with public opinion data from 2003 to 2021, we first show that the gender gap in opinion documented in other areas of foreign policy and security affairs extends to confidence in the military. Women have lower levels of trust in the military than men in a male-only conscription society. Second, we demonstrate that much of this gap (but not all) is explained by conscription further increasing distrust toward the military for mothers of sons that must serve. Finally, men who had served were not more trusting of other (non-military) state institutions, indicating that the prior findings were not part of a broader gender gap in the trust of state institutions.

Our study contributes to the academic literature in several ways. First, examining how conscription shapes the opinions of those who serve relative to those who do not, this paper reveals how mandatory military service can divide rather than unite at the population level. In the process, it highlights the gendered effect of conscription as a source of division in societies that conscript solely men. Second, this article adds to the evidence that time in uniform does not increase confidence in governing institutions among soldiers with a case study of a relatively new democracy in Asia. It thereby improves our understanding of the generalizability of scholarly work based mostly on established democracies in the West. More broadly, the findings are relevant to the literature on political trust, which is integral for several pillars of democratic stability, including civil–military relations, voters’ choices in elections, and citizen compliance with the law (Almond & Verba, 2015; Levitsky, 2018; Solar, 2022).

This article also adds to the policy debate on conscription and its consequences. The findings do not support assertions that military service can ameliorate contemporary political divisions in many democracies. At the same time, studies have noted that the electoral and partisan concerns in democracies make elected officials sensitive to public opinion about conscription policy (Atkinson & Fahey, 2023). There are reasons aside from national unity to implement mandatory service, however, and this could inform decisions to implement mandatory service in ways that take into account the diverging responses of different groups in society.

Gender, Conscription, and Military Trust

Conscription and Military Trust

Studies on the impact of conscription on public opinion have primarily focused on support for war (Erikson and Stoker, 2011; Horowitz & Levendusky, 2011; Lau et al., 1978). Fewer studies examine how conscription influences mass support for the military. This may be because, for many, it is obvious what effect time in uniform will have on an individual’s views of the military. Militaries devote many resources to assimilating members (Kier, 1995, p. 69). The high priority on instilling a military culture leads to a relatively homogeneous set of beliefs that value cohesion and unity, as well as the military organization itself. With mandatory service, citizens hold more positive views of the military simply because more of them have been socialized with its culture and values (Krebs, 2004). The longer a mandatory system is in place, it follows, the more views of the military across society will improve as more citizens serve in the armed forces.

A related argument contends that conscription can close the gap in opinions between the military and civilians. Because conscripts of compulsory military service have close relationships with others who do not serve, military values and identities based on a common cause can reach beyond those who serve. However, if the socialization effect of service in the military is limited to those who are (or have been) subject to it, a mandatory system will not close the gap between the military and civilians. As soldiers and veterans become indoctrinated with the values of the armed forces, they may find themselves further apart from those that do not serve. Divisions between civilians and the military will not only persist but a deeper divide across society could emerge.

Empirical research on how conscription impacts views of the military across the population has been mixed. Choulis et al. (2021), studied 34 European states and found that trust in the army is about two percentage points higher in countries with a military conscription policy than those with a volunteer system. This article posits that this is because military values reach a broader population under a conscription system compared with a volunteer one. Bove et al. (2022), in contrast, find that men drafted shortly before ending conscription in European countries had lower institutional trust than those who were exempted, but the military was not included in their analysis.

It is not clear how generalizable these findings are, however. Europe’s relatively benign security environment after the Cold War may be behind them. At the same time, these studies do not examine how conscription could have heterogeneous effects on the opinions of various subgroups of a population. Whether mandatory military service closes the gap between those who serve and do not in how they view the armed forces—and the conditions under which they do so—remains an open question.

Gender and Military Trust

How conscription affects the opinions of those who do not serve merits attention because even in compulsory systems, not everyone is subject to service. In fact, in many cases, most of the population is not required to serve. Those with health problems, students in higher education, sole family breadwinners, single parents, only children, and followers of particular religions are some of the groups that have been exempted from service in conscripting countries.

Among those exempted from serving in uniform, this article focuses on how the views of women are shaped by male conscription. The reasons are threefold. First, women are rarely required to serve in the armed forces, even in states that call on all men to do so (Desilver, 2019). Thus, the findings may have broader applicability beyond this particular case. Second, when exempted, they are the largest subgroup excluded from service in a mandatory system and, therefore, potentially the most important for studying the population-wide effect of conscription.

Finally, prior research in foreign policy public opinion provides grounds for expecting a gender gap between men and women on views of the military. For example, studies have shown that women have a higher aversion to violence and weigh the (human) costs of conflict more heavily in formulating opinions compared with men. Studies consistently show that women are less likely to support the use of force, more likely to support reducing the military budget (Eichenberg & Stoll, 2012; Leal, 2005; Shapiro & Mahajan, 1986), react more negatively to casualties, and prefer non-violent means of resolving conflict (Eichenberg, 2003, 2016). While studies on general political trust have not found robust and consistent evidence that gender is a significant factor,³ women’s aversion to using violence as a means to resolve conflict, as well as higher sensitivity to its costs, could translate into a lack of trust in the institution tasked with the organized use of force: the military. This leads to our first hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1 (H1). Women are less trusting of the armed forces than men.

Not only could women express less confidence in the military in general, but conscription could further lower women’s opinions of the military by putting family members in harm’s way. Research has shown that those who distrust governing institutions tend to think ill of their leaders (Hetherington, 1998; Wroe et al., 2013). Those with low trust in governing institutions are also less likely to support policies that entail personal risk or sacrifice, such as military action (Hetherington & Husser, 2012). Lack of trust in the military translates into negative sentiments about its leadership and unwillingness to undertake personal sacrifice by serving in the armed forces or having a close one serve.

It is thus plausible that when forced to take on risk and personal sacrifice via conscription, those closest to the ones who serve could (further) question the legitimacy of the military. Research on the Vietnam War shows that those more likely to be drafted not only opposed the conflict but also disapproved of Nixon and shifted partisan allegiances (Erikson & Stoker, 2011; Stam, 1996). More broadly, the higher costs of war can hurt the legitimacy of leaders in charge of the war effort and shorten their duration in office (De Mesquita et al., 1992; Stam, 1996; Walzer, 1977). These studies suggest that if the military is seen as a source of risk to the men called up for service, those who care most about them could hold adverse views toward the military (Grant, 1993; Huddy et al., 2005; Bae & Lee, 2021). Therefore, mothers of sons forced to sacrifice when their sons have to serve may be particularly distrustful of the military under a male-only conscription system.⁴ This leads to the hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2 (H2). Mothers of sons are less trusting of the armed forces than women without sons.

Fathers under such a system also put their sons at risk. However, virtually all men have served in the military in South Korea for more than seven decades. Therefore, almost all fathers of sons eligible for military service in South Korea are veterans. Studies have shown that time in the military fosters higher levels of confidence and trust in the military, the nation, and the state (De Juan et al., 2021; George & Teigen, 2008; Levi, 1997; Moskos, 1988). The experience of having served in the armed forces could thus affect how time in uniform for their sons affects the opinions of fathers. With more confidence in the military in general, veteran fathers could be more insulated from the dangers that military service poses to their sons.

Prior studies on conscription in the Korean context have noted how military service also fosters a gendered notion of citizenship and masculinity. Military training is perceived as a time to transition into responsible men by internalizing masculine values such as protecting their families, respecting authority, and sacrificing the individual for the collective. Time in uniform could thereby alter father–son relationships by, for example, making men “overcome their instincts to protect their son and fulfill their responsibilities as citizens of the national community by encouraging sons to go into the army” (Kwon, 2000). Fathers could consider service in the armed forces as the fulfillment of their son’s duty and service to the nation, rather than a threat that erodes their trust in the military. Therefore, it is not clear what the overall effect of conscription on fathers’ views would be.⁵

Moreover, because only men are conscripted, there exists no overlap between motherhood and compulsory service in the armed forces.⁶ The near-perfect correspondence of veteran status with gender throughout the adult population is, over time, a necessary outcome of a male-only conscription policy (Bae & Lee, 2024). A possible consequence of the disparity in experience in the armed forces is a divergence in opinions along gender lines. Thus, both inherent gender differences, as well as the veteran status that almost exactly aligns with gender, could influence how parents’ opinions respond to their son’s service in the military. The lack of variation in military service for fathers (and mothers) makes it difficult to adjudicate between the two. Here, we simply posit that either or both factors could result in conscription having diverging effects on mothers and fathers. We thus hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 3 (H3). Mothers and fathers of sons will respond differently to having a son subject to conscription.

Why Korea?

Male Conscription

To estimate the effect of male conscription on mass opinion, this study takes advantage of the political context of the Korean peninsula. Although the origins of male conscription in South Korea date back to the 1950–1953 Korean War, its formal adoption through ratification by the legislature occurred in 1957.

The continuing threat from Pyongyang after an armistice halted fighting in the Korean War has been the primary reason for maintaining a large army based on compulsory enlistment to this day. South Korea’s most important ally also encouraged mandatory military service after the armistice. Under the 1954 U.S.–Korea Agreed Minutes based on conferences held between President Rhee and President Eisenhower, the United States called for the strengthening of the Korean military primarily through the expansion of army personnel, which needed to be maintained through a conscription system.⁷ North Korea has continuously posed a military threat to South Korea in the decades since the Korean War (Bae, 2018).

Currently, all non-disabled South Korean men over 19 must serve at least 20 months in the military.⁸ After completing their required term, they automatically become part of the Reserve Forces and receive annual training for 8 years. Exemptions from mandatory military service are based on physical evaluations all men receive the year they turn 19.⁹

The average annual percentage of Korean men exempt from military service during the duration of our study is 2.2%, with the lowest being 1.6% in 2013 and the highest being 2.9% in 2018. Most of those among the 2.2% exempt from active duty are still required to provide civil support services during a war. The average annual percentage of men who are exempt from even civil service duties during wartime is about 0.3%.¹⁰

The low exemption rate underscores the near-universal nature of South Korea’s conscription. Such rates virtually guarantee that a male will serve in the armed forces. Moreover, while enlisting soldiers can choose the branch of the armed forces they serve in and can apply for particular specialties, many of these tend to be competitive. The branch and specialty also have no bearing on the location of the post they are stationed in. There is a degree of randomness to the hardship and danger that one will be exposed to, often referred to as the “random spin (ppaengpaengyi)” of military service.

Historically, there has also been an incentive to serve. During Korea’s industrialization from the 1960s to the 1980s, compulsory male service was integrated into the labor market. Evading conscription was made very difficult by making fulfillment of national defense duty a requirement for employment, which in turn reinforced men’s economic status and empowered them to be the main providers for the family (Moon, 2005).¹¹

Military conscription in South Korea has also been implemented for decades since 1950. The long-running nature of the conscription policy, in tandem with the low exemption rate from military service, are features not easily found in other countries. These traits make it likely that South Korea would clearly show previously hypothesized effects of military service while simultaneously making it possible to examine the long-run ramifications of conscription for mass opinion.

The Security Context

Not only is military service compulsory for all men in South Korea, but inter-Korea relations during the timeframe of our study from 2003 to 2018 also coincide with highly salient national security events likely to sway mass opinion about the military. Most notably, North Korea conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, 2013, 2016 (twice), and 2017. Pyongyang also instigated numerous episodes of violence during this period, including the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island off the west coast of South Korea. A threatening security environment tends to increase support for governing institutions (Levy, 1988, 1989; Tarar, 2006). The armed forces’ unique role in national defense enhances this effect of increasing support and trust for the military.

There were also positive developments in the security environment during this period, with a summit meeting taking place between South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-Il in 2007. More recently, the rising tensions over North Korea’s missile tests and nuclear program in 2017 also gave way to a thaw in relations with several meetings between the leaders of South Korea, the United States, and North Korea in 2018 and 2019.

In addition, administrations in Seoul with divergent foreign policies have portrayed North Korea in a very different light to South Koreans. Liberal governments (2003–2007 and 2017–2022 in our data) have adhered to a “sunshine policy” toward North Korea, committing to non-aggression toward Pyongyang, delivering humanitarian aid, holding several high-level political meetings, and implementing various economic partnerships. In the process, these administrations presented North Korea to South Koreans as “brothers” to support, as well as a partner to cooperate with, and emphasized “peace and prosperity” through reconciliation on the peninsula and eventual unification with the North (Bae, 2020).

Conservative governments (2008–2017), however, have criticized the liberal approach as ineffective: it failed to change North Korea and improve inter-Korea relations. Conservative leaders cut economic exchanges and cooperative measures with Pyongyang following North Korea’s second nuclear test in 2009, the sinking of the Cheonan (a South Korean navy ship) that resulted in 46 deaths, and artillery fire by North Korean forces on South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island that killed four. Political communications regarding North Korea to the South Korean public also returned to the critical and hostile rhetoric of the pre-sunshine era.

The universal nature of mandatory conscription for men, the highly consequential nature of the North Korean threat, breakouts of violence interspersed with political thaws in inter-Korea relations, and the qualitative shifts in South Korean government messages about North Korea provide the ideal setting to test for conscription’s influence and the relevance of gender against competing variables that affect public opinion. Short of war, relations between Pyongyang and Seoul during this period offer nearly full variation in the nature of national security events and the content of government messages regarding an external threat. This renders our inferences regarding the relevance of gender more reliable.

Data and Method

Our empirical analysis tests the relevance of gender in popular views of key state institutions and assesses how conscription influences the mass opinion of the military. Our data are from the Korean General Social Survey, a nationally representative South Korean public opinion survey collected annually between 2003 and 2021.¹² The sample size is around 1,400 each year. The survey is housed in Sungkyunkwan University’s Survey Research Center.¹³ The surveys were carried out during July and August of each year.

The dependent variable is trust in the military. This is measured by “the military” option in the question that asks: “The following are key institutions in our country. Please tell me how much confidence you have in the people in charge of the following institutions.” The possible responses are: “very confident,” “somewhat confident,” and “almost no confidence.” Figure 1 shows the public’s confidence in different political institutions. As in many other countries (Malešič and Garb, 2018), military trust is higher than trust toward the legislature and government (both the presidential office, often referred to as the “Blue House” because of the blue tiles on the executive offices, as well as general government).

Figure 2 plots the percentage of women who responded that they are “very confident” about the military and the presidential office compared with men. The shifts in the responses for both institutions show some commonalities. The steep drop in 2014 for both trust in the executive office and the military is likely caused by the Sewol Ferry disaster, when a boat capsized off the Southwestern coast of the Korean peninsula and resulted in 304 of the 476 passengers dying (5 of the passengers remain missing and are presumed dead), including 250 high school students. The tragedy resulted in widespread mistrust of the government, including the Navy and Coast Guard, and its inability to better respond to the crisis. In 2017, there was also a boost in the trust of all government institutions as South Korea emerged from the impeachment of former president Park Geun-Hye, and confidence in the state began to recover with the election of a new president.

Trust in the two institutions also displays differences. While overall confidence is higher for the military, it exhibits more year-over-year fluctuations than the presidential office. For example, in 2005 and 2011, there was a significant drop in trust in the military, while confidence levels in the presidential office remained largely unaffected. Part of the high variance is due to incidents that tarnish the reputation and image of the armed forces but not necessarily the government overall.

In June of 2005, for example, an infantry division private in Yeoncheon, near the border area with North Korea, came back from a shift on night guard duty and threw a grenade into the barracks where his unit was asleep. He also fired his rifle inside the barracks, killing eight soldiers and wounding four. An investigation ensued and announced that hazing and verbal abuse by more senior soldiers in the unit were the reason for the incident. Six years later, a marine corporal in Ganghwa Island shot and killed four others while seriously injuring another soldier in his unit.¹⁴ The corporal had been the subject of hazing from more junior soldiers in his unit. These incidents were widely reported in the news media. Rebukes from the public for the failure of the military to protect soldiers and adequately address problems inside the barracks ensued. Both incidents occurred immediately before the annual surveys, which likely made them more salient in respondents’ minds.

Also noteworthy in the graph is that women generally have lower trust in the military. In only one year out of the fifteen we analyzed was the percentage of women’s “very confident” responses higher than men’s. On average, about 17.5% of women expressed high trust in the military, while 22.3% of men did so. In other words, a 28% higher number of men responded that they were highly trusting of the armed forces than women. In contrast, there is virtually no difference in the percentage of women and men who responded that they are very confident about the presidential office.

Below, we test whether male conscription is behind the gender gap regarding trust in the military. The key challenge in estimating the causal effect of conscription on opinions of the military (as well as other government institutions) is that military service is mandatory for all males. We overcome this obstacle by utilizing Washington’s (2008) method, which relies on the assumption that a child’s gender is randomly determined. The random “assignment” of conscription is achieved not by selecting who serves but from the random process through which a child’s gender is determined, conditional on the number of children parents have.

Conditioning on the number of children is important because how many children a parent has could be correlated with traits that also influence the views of the government. However, once one decides to have a child, whether it is a son or daughter is determined randomly. We rely on this randomization process to estimate the impact of having a son (subject to compulsory service) on the opinions of mothers and fathers relative to having a daughter (exempt from service). This approach also allows us to isolate the effect of having a son from other unobservable individual characteristics that may influence having a son, public opinion, or both.

Thus, our main explanatory variables of interest are the female variable, the son variable, and their interaction. The female variable tests whether gender differences exist in trust of key state institutions, including the military. The son variable captures whether the respondent has at least one son. This variable is generated from the list of all family members in the survey. It is a dichotomous variable coded as 1 if the respondent has at least one son and zero otherwise. An interaction between the respondent’s sex (female) and son is included to capture the gendered effects of having a son (subject to conscription) on the trust of state institutions. Fixed effects for the number of children take into account the differences that may exist between families that choose to have varying numbers of children.¹⁵

In our models, we control for factors that may be correlated with trust in the military at the domestic level. Studies show that the risk of war influences views of the military and governing institutions (Desch, 2001; Levy, 1988). Therefore, we include a North Korea nuclear test variable consisting of survey years immediately following North Korea’s six nuclear tests (surveys from 2007, 2009, 2013, 2016, and 2018).¹⁶ To consider the influence of government messages that the literature has shown to affect public opinion, the liberal government variable includes years when liberal rule implemented cooperative engagement policies toward North Korea. We code liberal government years, using a dichotomous variable, as a 1 from 2003 to 2007 and from 2017 onwards and 0 in all remaining years. We include regional fixed effects to account for regionalism in Korean politics and the distance from the border with North Korea.

We also include demographic factors that account for individual differences in trust for the military. To account for baseline levels of trust that may differ by individual, we have a “trust in society” variable that is measured by the question, “How trustworthy do you think our society is?” Responses for this question are on an 11-point scale (10 is very trustworthy, and 0 is not trustworthy at all). We also include a variable that measures positive respondent views toward North Korea. Positive views toward North Korea are those who responded that North Korea is a country to “support” or “cooperate” with. Other individual characteristics included are marital status, level of education, political ideology, age, and household income. Finally, we include time trend variables indexed by year to account for changes over time. Table 1 shows descriptive statistics of the variables.

Table 1.

Summary Statistics.

	Mean	SD	Min	Max
Military trust	1.93	0.67	1	3
Female	0.49	0.50	0	1
Son	0.44	0.50	0	1
Number of children	1.02	1.01	0	5
North Korean nuclear test	0.29	0.45	0	1
Sunshine policy	0.51	0.50	0	1
Positive views toward North Korea	0.50	0.50	0	1
Married	0.75	0.43	0	1
Education level	4.57	1.58	0	8
Political ideology	3.01	0.98	1	5 (conservative)
Age	44.25	16.01	18	95
Degree of trust in society	5.30	1.89	0	10
Monthly income	8.34	5.03	0	21

Notes: N = 16,168. Data for years 2003 to 2021. No data for 2015, 2017, and 2019.

Results

Table 2 reports estimates from a linear model. In the appendix (Supplemental Table A1), we check the robustness of the results by using an ordinal logistic regression. The results are robust to this specification. We first test the gender difference without a son effect in column 1. The second column includes the son variable separately without an interaction term. In the third column is the full model with an interaction term between women and having a son.

Table 2.

Women and Military Trust.

DV: trust in military	(1)	(2)	(3)
Female	−0.077*** (0.006)	−0.077*** (0.006)	−0.062*** (0.008)
Son		−0.003(0.015)	0.022(0.019)
Female*Son			−0.035** (0.011)
North Korean nuclear tests	−0.261*** (0.059)	−0.261*** (0.060)	−0.260*** (0.059)
Liberal Govt.	0.285*** (0.047)	0.285*** (0.047)	0.285*** (0.048)
Positive views toward North Korea	−0.042** (0.015)	−0.042** (0.015)	−0.042** (0.016)
Married	−0.003 (0.015)	−0.001 (0.007)	0.006 (0.019)
Education level	−0.038*** (0.005)	−0.038*** (0.005)	−0.038*** (0.005)
Political ideology	0.018** (0.007)	0.018** (0.007)	0.018** (0.007)
Age	0.009*** (0.001)	0.009*** (0.001)	0.008*** (0.001)
Trust in society	0.061*** (0.004)	0.061*** (0.004)	0.061*** (0.004)
Household income	−0.001(0.001)	−0.001(0.002)	−0.001(0.002)
Constant	1.184*** (0.106)	1.184*** (0.106)	1.183*** (0.105)
No. of children fixed effects	N	N	Y
Year & regional fixed effects	Y	Y	Y
Observations	16164	16164	16164
R ²	0.143	0.143	0.143

p < .1, **p < .05, ***p < .01; Survey weights included. Regional clustered standard errors in parentheses.

The first column reports coefficients that suggest gender differences regarding views of the military exist. The female variable is negative and statistically significant, which shows that women are less likely to trust the military than men. When virtually all men serve in the military, the gender gap in the confidence that members of society have in the armed forces persists.

The second column adds the son variable. It is not statistically significant, indicating that having a son required to serve in the military is not correlated with levels of trust toward the military. As the third column with an interaction term between female and having a son shows however, this is not because having a son does not affect parents.

The interaction term between female and having a son is negative and statistically significant, meaning women with sons are less likely to trust the military than men without sons. The son variable shows the effect for men with sons and is not statistically significant. While having a son does not affect fathers’ views of the military, it increases distrust of the military for mothers.

The female variable remains negative and statistically significant in Column 3. Thus, women overall have lower confidence in the military, and being a mother to sons subject to military service further deteriorates trust in the military. Having a son does not have this adverse effect on fathers. This result relies on the random nature of the process determining the gender of a child and thus can be interpreted as being causal.

The marginal effects of the interaction term between women and having sons in Table 2, Column 3 are plotted in Figure 3. The y-axis represents predicted values for the response to the question on military trust, with 2 corresponding to “somewhat confident” in the military and 1 to “not confident.” Women’s trust overall, whether they have a son or not, in the military is significantly lower than that of men. In addition, as the solid line shows, the magnitude of the gender difference is larger for those with sons. Women with sons are less likely to trust the military than men with sons.

In sum, women have lower levels of trust toward the military than men, and male conscription widens this gap. In contrast to the literature that has focused on whether mandatory service in the military has a unifying effect on opinions of the state, these results show that at the population level, conscription for males polarizes views of the military by lowering confidence in the military on the part of mothers that must send their sons in harm’s way. For parents, in other words, conscription does not unify views of the military but rather further divides them.

We test the robustness of the model in the appendix (Supplemental Table A3) by testing the effect of those with only sons and find similar results where the interaction term between female and having only sons is negative and statistically significant. We also show that the coefficients on the children fixed effects, which control for heterogeneity due to the number of children in a household, are statistically insignificant in the appendix (Supplemental Table A2). This suggests that having fewer children (lower fertility) does not lead to different effects on trust in the military. In other words, individual preferences or attitudes that may be shaped by demographic or societal trends, such as declining birth rates, do not influence the results. Put together, the robustness checks suggest that it is military service itself, rather than fewer sons serving in it, that is leading to a higher distrust of the military.

Regarding the covariates, the nuclear test variable is statistically significant. The negative coefficient suggests trust in the military decreases following nuclear tests conducted by North Korea. That is, serious national security threats are associated with lower military trust. This result stands in contrast to other studies, for instance, by Tiargan-Orr and Eran-Jona (2016) on Israel shows that support for the Israel Defense Force increases when there are high-intensity military conflicts. Liberal rule is associated with higher public support for the military. Those with more positive views toward North Korea have less trust in the military. More years of education are associated with lower confidence in the military. However, older respondents and those with more trust in society were associated with higher trust in the military.

One possible concern for these findings is that conscription could be conflated with another factor driving a wedge between men’s and women’s views of state institutions. For example, lower women’s representation in government or unequal status of women in society could lead to mistrust of government institutions, including, but not limited to, the military. In Table 3, we test whether gender differences in trust also exist for other political institutions, including the legislature, government, and the executive branch (often referred to as the Blue House in Korea for the blue tiles on the presidential office building). Utilizing the exact specification as in our primary analysis of the military, we find no evidence that women have lower general trust toward institutions. Women exhibit no significant difference from men in terms of their confidence in the executive branch. They have higher levels of confidence in the legislature than men.

Table 3.

Gender, Conscription, and Institutional Trust.

DV: trust in institutions	(1)	(2)	(3)
DV: trust in institutions	Legislature	Government	Blue House
Female	0.050** (0.014)	0.014(0.012)	0.006(0.015)
Son	0.009(0.011)	−0.006(0.011)	0.009(0.019)
Female*Son	0.000(0.017)	0.008(0.016)	0.000(0.016)
North Korean nuclear test	0.022(0.025)	0.059* (0.025)	0.091** (0.029)
Liberal Govt.	−0.007(0.014)	0.096** (0.037)	0.115* (0.058)
Positive views toward North Korea	0.012(0.012)	0.001(0.015)	0.022* (0.010)
Married	−0.065*** (0.014)	−0.050** (0.015)	−0.037** (0.012)
Education level	−0.014*** (0.003)	0.003(0.004)	−0.008** (0.003)
Political ideology	0.003(0.005)	0.006(0.006)	−0.007(0.008)
Age	0.003*** (0.001)	0.004*** (0.001)	0.004*** (0.001)
Trust in society	0.056*** (0.001)	0.088*** (0.002)	0.096*** (0.001)
Household income	−0.004*** (0.001)	0.002(0.001)	0.001(0.001)
Constant	0.971*** (0.051)	0.888*** (0.038)	1.079*** (0.044)
No. of children fixed effects	Y	Y	Y
Year & regional fixed effects	Y	Y	Y
N	16165	15931	16053
Pseudo R-sq	0.069	0.101	0.110

p < .1, **p < .05, ***p < .01; Survey weights included. Regional clustered standard errors in parentheses.

That women have lower levels of trust in only the military of all the institutions in the survey makes it highly unlikely that women’s general mistrust of institutions is behind the results. Furthermore, the results indicate that the interaction term between women and sons is insignificant for all other institutions. Having a son does not affect women’s views of the government, the president’s office, and the legislature. This further strengthens the case that the mother’s views of the military are driven not by an overall mistrust of institutions but by something specific to the military and their son’s forced mobilization into it.

These results also provide evidence against the argument that mandatory service can instill military values across the population beyond those who serve (Bove et al., 2022). Not only does conscription lower confidence in the military for mothers of sons subject to compulsory service, but other women remain less trusting of the military than men. The findings also counter the logic that mandatory military service has spill-over effects of increasing trust in state institutions beyond the military. The men who serve do not exhibit higher levels of trust in other state institutions than the women who do not serve.

Conclusion

Through a case study of South Korea, this article critically examined the argument that military service can increase confidence in state institutions across the population and create a more cohesive and unified polity. It argued that if unity and cohesion across the population is the outcome of interest, it is essential to consider how those who do not serve view the military and how conscription affects their views of the state and the armed forces.

Examining the views of women and mothers of sons in a society with mandatory military service for all males, we found no evidence that mandatory service furthers cohesion within a nation and confidence in its institutions. First, conscription exacerbated the gender divide in views of the military by lowering the confidence that mothers of sons had in the armed forces. While the previous literature has focused on how serving in the military alters the views of the veterans who serve, the results in this article suggest that conscription can also change the views of the public through an alternate route: putting sons in harm’s way adversely affects mothers’ confidence in the military.

Second, while men responded with higher levels of trust in the military than women, they did not demonstrate higher confidence in state institutions. Time in the military did not foster loyalty to other state institutions. In a society where conscription for males has been a part of life for over 60 years, mandatory military service neither enhanced loyalty to state institutions among those who served nor closed the gap in views of the military among those closest to the men required to enlist: their parents.

These findings from the case of South Korea have several implications. First, they caution against arguments for selective conscription as a way to enhance loyalty to the state and thereby bridge divides within a country. Forcing selective mandatory military service onto the population, instead of generating commonalities between the citizenry, adds a layer of disparity in their experiences and views. That disparity, in turn, hinders creating a sense of unity across the population.

Cleavages in the trust of the military are also relevant for the readiness of the armed forces. Amid decreasing numbers of eligible men due to lower birth rates, thousands of South Koreans with multiple citizenships have been giving up their South Korean citizenships each year. Those giving up citizenship are predominantly male and under 19, strongly suggesting that military service is the primary reason for choosing another nationality (ChoongChung News. 2023). Moreover, South Korean mothers traveling abroad on “birth tourism” to countries that give citizenship upon birth are one of the reasons that so many have the option of renouncing their Korean citizenship.

Although a 2005 revision to citizenship law has curbed such practices (Segyeilbo 2010), mistrust of the military, particularly among mothers, may continue to be relevant for the number of men required to serve. The demographic trend in South Korea and the requirements of modern warfare suggest that the South Korean armed forces will have to rely more, if not exclusively, on volunteers for its military. A division within the broader population regarding confidence in the military will likely adversely affect recruitment efforts for a future volunteer force.

The findings of this article also point to avenues for future research. If exemption of military service along gender lines is inimical to furthering national cohesion and trust in state institutions, would mandatory service for both men and women have a different effect? This is not just a theoretical question. Israel has long required both men and women to serve. The gender and parent-son dynamics in that country have already received attention (Bershtling, 2023; Klein, 2002). More recently, Sweden and Norway have called up women for mandatory military service. Denmark has been considering implementing a similar system.¹⁷ Examining public opinion about the military and state institutions from a comparative perspective in these countries would be a fruitful avenue for future research.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-afs-10.1177_0095327X241234021 – Supplemental material for How Mandatory Military Service Can Divide Rather Than Unite: Conscription, Gender, and Military Trust in South Korea 2003–2021

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-afs-10.1177_0095327X241234021 for How Mandatory Military Service Can Divide Rather Than Unite: Conscription, Gender, and Military Trust in South Korea 2003–2021 by Joonbum Bae and YuJung Julia Lee in Armed Forces & Society

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Chad Nelson, Marybeth Ulrich, and Andrew Yeo, the anonymous reviewers, and panel participants at the 2023 IS-ISSS conference in Colorado Springs for comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication ofthis article.

ORCID iD

YuJung Julia Lee

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

Author Biographies

Joonbum Bae is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Colorado State University.

YuJung Julia Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Colorado State University. Her research in comparative politics explores issues in women and politics and the politics of development.

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Supplementary Material

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How Mandatory Military Service Can Divide Rather Than Unite: Conscription,Gender,and Military Trust in South Korea 2003–2021

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Gender, Conscription, and Military Trust

Conscription and Military Trust

Gender and Military Trust

Why Korea?

Male Conscription

The Security Context

Data and Method

Results

Conclusion

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-afs-10.1177_0095327X241234021 – Supplemental material for How Mandatory Military Service Can Divide Rather Than Unite: Conscription, Gender, and Military Trust in South Korea 2003–2021

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Supplemental Material

Notes

Author Biographies

References

Supplementary Material