Globalization and Women's Property Rights in South Korea

This article discusses the South Korean law decreeing women's rights to equal inheritance that came into effect on January 13, 1990 in relation to globalization. A historical perspective and comparison with western societies will be presented to analyze the influence of globalization on women's property rights. The former is important in that the law reflects social changes, and the latter is necessary, since globalization in non-European context usually suggests westernization. Although in ancient Korean society, women enjoyed greater equality with men (Deuchler 1991; Lee 1999), during the Choson dynasty (1392-1910) women's status was very low, their inferiority to men being sectioned by the prevailing Confucian cosmology. For over five centuries, woman had no property rights, and had to depend financially on her father before marriage, her husband after marriage and her eldest son in the event of her husband's death. Primogeniture meant women had no inheritance rights, married women being considered 'outsiders' in their natal homes. In the 20th century, Korea went through great changes from a hermit kingdom to a war-torn impoverished country struggling to survive in the bewildering modern world, finally emerging as a newly industrialized nation towards the end of the 1970s. The economic plight and/or loss of significant men in their lives often meant that women had to take on the financial burden themselves. Many succeeded in not only earning a living for their families, but accumulating considerable fortunes. Nevertheless, the women's social status did not improve drastically, the long-prevailing ideology of 'namjon yobi (respected men and subservient women)' being firmly established as the social ethos (Choe 1999; Ko 2001; Pae 2007). In the 1980s globalization fever swept through Korea, which culminated in her hosting the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul. It was in early 1990, immediately after the decade of globalization campaigns ended, the equal inheritance law was promulgated. This article explores whether globalization played a significant part in bringing the law about, through examining women's property rights in Western societies in the modern era.