South Korea’s shrinking pool of military manpower has pushed conscription policy back into public debate, with a new poll showing majority support for bringing women into the draft.
According to a military service reform survey released on Aug. 19 by the Reform Institute under the Reform Party, 59.6% of respondents said they support a female conscription system, while 34% said they oppose it. The gap between the two sides was 25.6 percentage points.
The survey covered 1,006 adults aged 18 and older across the country. Broken down by gender, support for female conscription stood at 64.8% among men. Among women, 54.5% also said they support it. Men in their 20s and 30s posted the highest support level of any group at 71.7%.
Selective volunteer enlistment drew support, but doubts remain
The poll also asked respondents about a selective volunteer enlistment system. Support came in at 47.4%, ahead of opposition at 41.9%.
That did not mean the public believed the system would solve South Korea’s troop shortage. When asked whether a selective volunteer system would help supplement military manpower, 49.9% said it would not help, compared with 42.7% who said it would.
On the broader direction of future military service policy, the most supported option was a parallel structure combining conscription and volunteer service at 41.5%. Keeping the current conscription system came next at 35.4%. Support for a complete shift to a volunteer-only system was 10.6%.
Younger respondents leaned more toward keeping the current draft
The poll showed that younger adults, who are closer to military service age, were more likely than other age groups to support keeping the current system. Among respondents in their 20s, 48.3% chose to maintain the current conscription model. Among those in their 30s, the figure was 47.6%.
Looking only at men in their 20s and 30s, support for maintaining the current system reached 49%.
On the selective volunteer enlistment question, the share saying they were “strongly opposed” was 41.1% among respondents in their 20s and 41.2% among those in their 30s. Among men and women in their 20s and 30s, the strongly opposed share was also close, at 40.8% and 41.9%, respectively.
The figures point to a split in attitudes: younger South Koreans showed strong support for expanding military obligations to women, but that did not translate into stronger backing for replacing the draft with a volunteer model. The report said expanding the population bearing service obligations may align more closely with the thinking of part of the younger generation than reducing conscription.
Taiwan was cited as another case of policy tightening
The report said South Korea is not alone in facing this problem. Taiwan, which also faces low birth rates and defense manpower pressure, has also moved in recent years toward strengthening mandatory service rather than relying entirely on volunteer recruitment.
Taiwan had previously shortened mandatory service step by step and paired four months of standing military service training with volunteer forces. The government later decided to restore one-year mandatory service starting in 2024, applying to men born on or after Jan. 1, 2005, after regional security conditions and force structure came under renewed review.
The report noted that Taiwan and South Korea do not use identical systems, but the underlying issue is becoming more similar: as the young population keeps shrinking, it remains an open question whether recruitment incentives alone are enough to maintain force size.
Lee Jun-seok said reform should include those who will serve
Reform Party leader Lee Jun-seok focused on the strong opposition to selective volunteer enlistment among people in their 20s and 30s. He said roughly 41% of the generation that will actually bear the military service system, both men and women, expressed strong opposition, showing that the design itself may be problematic if it does not reflect the views of those directly affected.
Lee said discussion of military service reform should be built on the consent of “the generation that will bear this system,” rather than being decided only by polling results from the population as a whole.
The report also noted that the Reform Party has close political ties with male voters in their 20s and 30s in South Korea. Lee has long counted young men among his main support bases.
According to the 2025 presidential election exit poll cited in the report, Lee won 37.2% support among men under 30, the highest among the three main candidates. His support rate among men in their 30s was 25.8%. Among women of the same age groups, by contrast, his support was only about 10%.