Industrial Patriarchy and Young Women's out-Migration In South Korea

Background and Purpose: South Korea's non-metropolitan regions face accelerating demographic crisis as young women (aged 19–34) exit at rates significantly exceeding those of young men, deepening regional gender imbalances and local extinction risk. Prior research has examined youth out-migration through aggregate economic indicators without treating young women as a distinct analytic unit. This study draws on industrial patriarchy — a framework describing how male-dominated heavy manufacturing economies combine with kinship-based gender role divisions to systematically exclude young women from stable careers through gender-segregated hiring and occupational misfit norms, making out-migration a rational response. We hypothesize that (1) regions with higher heavy manufacturing concentration show greater young women's out-migration, and (2) higher female employment rates mitigate out-migration, net of regional economic capacity.

Methods: A pooled time-series cross-sectional dataset was constructed for all 17 si-do jurisdictions over 2013–2023 (N = 170 province-years) using publicly available administrative statistics from the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS). The dependent variable is the annual rate of change in young female population (ages 19–34), derived from resident registration population records. The primary independent variable, heavy manufacturing's share of regional GDP (encompassing petrochemicals, metals, machinery, and transport equipment; lagged one year), operationalizes industrial patriarchy — sectors characterized by gender-segregated hiring that systematically exclude women regardless of educational attainment. Female employment rate by province (lagged one year), drawn from the Regional Employment Survey, serves as a secondary indicator of labor market gender inequity. Log-transformed per capita GRDP (lagged one year), sourced from regional income accounts, is included as a control for baseline economic capacity. A two-way fixed effects panel regression model controls simultaneously for time-invariant regional characteristics and year-specific common shocks, isolating the net structural effect of industrial patriarchy on young women's out-migration.

Results: Heavy manufacturing-concentrated provinces recorded the steepest young female population declines. Two-way fixed effects estimates indicate that a one percentage point increase in heavy manufacturing's share of regional GDP was associated with a 0.44 percentage point increase in young women's out-migration rate (β = −0.435, SE = 0.189, p = .035), supporting Hypothesis 1. Female employment rate showed no significant independent effect (p = .292), failing to support Hypothesis 2. Per capita GRDP was positively associated with population retention (p < .001), yet the significant effect of industrial structure confirms that the gendered composition of regional economies predicts young women's departure beyond aggregate wealth.

Conclusions and Implications: Industrial patriarchy embedded in regional production systems is a significant structural predictor of young women's out-migration, independent of overall economic prosperity. These findings challenge policies treating regional depopulation as a generic economic problem, calling instead for gender-responsive interventions: diversifying regional industrial structure beyond male-typed sectors, expanding career pathways for women, and dismantling male breadwinner employment norms. This study provides an empirically grounded, gender-structural framework applicable to other industrialized societies confronting gendered demographic decline.