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'Political polarization has deepened,' report warns, calls for easing divide

Published: 04 Mar. 2026, 15:45 Updated: 04 Mar. 2026, 16:33

A protester in support of President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment, left, holds up a picture of democracy activist Park Jong-chul during a rally at Seoul National University in Gwanak District, southern Seoul, on Feb. 15, 2025. Park, an SNU alumni, was killed in January 1987 while protesting the Chun Doo Hwan regime. [YONHAP]

Koreans considered political conflict the most severe out of all social conflicts in the country, according to latest data.

A report released Wednesday by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs found that respondents ranked the liberal-conservative divide as the most severe form of social conflict, followed by tensions between the Seoul metropolitan area and the rest of the country, and then conflict between regular and nonregular workers.

In the survey, the liberal-conservative divide ranked first at 3.48 points, followed by the capital region versus noncapital regions at 3.00 points and regular versus nonregular employment at 2.96 points. Respondents rated how severe each conflict was on a four-point scale ranging from very severe at 1 to not severe at all at 4, and the results were reverse-coded and averaged so that higher scores indicate a more serious conflict.

“As political polarization has deepened, along with populism and growing concern about arson- and violence-based protests around the world, measures are needed to ease conflicts between conservatives and progressives,” the researchers said.

Perceptions of social mobility, the sense that people can move up the social ladder through their own effort, have steadily declined since 2021, falling to 2.57 points in 2025, the lowest level since 2015, suggesting a fading belief that effort can lead to upward mobility.

Protesters for President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment, left, and protesters against the impeachment rally at central Seoul, on March 15, 2025. [YONHAP]

Rates of volunteering and charitable giving have also continued to drop since 2014, indicating a contraction in civic engagement in practice. The volunteering rate fell from 27.42 percent in 2014 to 14 percent in 2025, while the share of respondents who donated declined from 33.87 percent in 2014 to 18.19 percent in 2025.

The report noted that volunteering had already been on a downward trend before the Covid-19 pandemic, then fell sharply in 2021 and has yet to recover to earlier levels.

At the same time, subjective well-being indicators rose. Life satisfaction came to 6.63 out of 10 in last year’s survey, up from 6.05 when the series began in 2014, and the happiness score also increased to 7.01 from 6.05 in 2014.

The findings are based on a 2025 social cohesion survey conducted through in-person interviews with 3,009 people nationwide ages 19 to 75, from July 14 to Sept. 1 last year.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY KIM NAM-YOUNG [[email protected]]