Beyond generational discourse: An age-period-cohort analysis of South Koreans’ attitudes toward reunification with North Korea

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study conducts age-period-cohort analyses of South Koreans’ attitudes toward reunification with North Korea, a hostile polity that shares a national identity, using the Korea Institute for National Unification survey data accumulated since 2014. It is found that the attitudes toward unification, in general, vary with age. Older respondents tend to show a greater need for unification, a weaker orientation toward peaceful coexistence, and a greater willingness to bear the unification tax burden. Unlike findings of the prior studies, cohort (generation) effects are limitedly found. While the youngest generation has the least interest in North Korea, the middle-aged generations who used to see North Korea through a lens of its own context have a relatively stronger interest in North Korea. In contrast, period effects outweigh cohort effects on South Koreans’ attitudes toward reunification and North Korea. These findings imply that the application of the “generational discourse of reunification with North Korea” in previous studies and the media may be overly exaggerated.