[Changing the World M]⑩ "Are Only Parents and Children a Family?"... Dreaming of a 'New Community'

[M's World to Live In]
No Stereotypes About Family... Positive About Civic Unions
Interest in LGBT and Climate Change... Oriented Toward Diverse Communities

Lee Min-jung, a 30-year-old woman, currently lives with a same-sex friend in a 'share house' style, where they each have their own rooms but share the living room in a small two-room apartment. Lee said, "I am dating someone else, but I’m not sure if I necessarily need to get married," adding, "However, living alone is lonely. I needed a like-minded friend to live with." She has no issues living with her current housemate. If there were legal protections, she would like to apply for a housing subscription together and, if successful, continue living in this kind of housing arrangement. She said, "Half-jokingly, half-seriously, there are voices around me saying that when we become elderly, we should all live together," and added, "Isn’t it true that a family doesn’t have to be composed only of parents and children?"

No Fixed Notions About Family... Preferring Diverse Forms

The 'Millennial generation' (born 1980?1996, M generation) aims for various forms of communities. The 'normal family ideology' consisting of opposite-sex parents and children no longer applies to them. There is no absolute need to have children, nor to get married and be bound by legal relationships. If hearts align, friends can form a family, and cohabiting with a partner without marriage is acceptable. They can live with cats, and same-sex marriage should be legally guaranteed. The older generation’s value that "getting married and raising children is the way to live well" is cracking. The ideal form of family began to change starting with the M generation.

Survey results support this. Asia Economy commissioned the polling agency Embrain to conduct a panel survey from the 31st of last month to the 5th, targeting 1,000 adults nationwide aged 20 to 69. When asked, "Do you support 'civil unions' that recognize various families such as cohabitation and same-sex marriage beyond legal or de facto marriages?" the M generation showed a much more positive attitude than previous generations.

In response to this question, 9.9% of the M generation answered "strongly agree" and 36.5% answered "agree," totaling 46.4% positive responses. This showed a clear difference from the '86 generation' (born 1960?1969) and the 'X generation' (born 1970?1979). The 86 generation’s positive responses were 31.7% (1.7% strongly agree, 30.0% agree), and the X generation’s were 36.3% (4.9% strongly agree, 31.4% agree). The tendency to pursue diverse family forms grew stronger in younger generations, with the Z generation showing an even higher positive response of 49.0% (10.8% strongly agree, 38.2% agree).

However, even within the M generation, there were some differences in responses by gender. The tendency to support diverse family forms was more pronounced among women than men. Among M generation women, positive responses reached 56.1% (11.6% strongly agree, 44.5% agree), whereas men recorded a relatively lower rate of 37.0% (8.2% strongly agree, 28.8% agree).

Related Books Become Bestsellers... Legislation Also Proposed

In fact, civil unions have been a hot topic among the M generation for several years. In 2019, the book titled “Two Women Living Together”, which tells the story of two women cohabiting, became a bestseller mainly among women in their 20s and 30s. Last year, a book titled “The Jung Sisters’ House Is Open Today Too”, about three women and two men living together in a detached house, was published and gained popularity. In line with this trend, the political sphere is accelerating efforts to promote related legislation.

Jang Hye-young, a Justice Party lawmaker, introduced three family-related bills last month (Marriage Equality Act, Non-Marital Childbirth Support Act, and Life Partner Act). These bills aim to legally guarantee same-sex marriage and define two adults who share daily life and household chores, without blood or marital ties, as life partners eligible for legal protection. The Non-Marital Childbirth Support Act significantly expands the scope of infertility treatments, which were previously limited to infertile couples, to anyone who wants to have children without getting married.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Interest in LGBT and Climate Change... Aiming for Broad Community

Since the M generation is open to civil unions, they are also active in voicing opinions on gender issues such as LGBT (sexual minorities). On social networking services (SNS), there have long been self-descriptions that subdivide identities, such as ‘cisgender heterosexual woman,’ meaning a woman whose gender assigned at birth matches her gender identity and who is heterosexual. The M generation does not agree with identities simply divided into female or male.

Recently, on global SNS platforms like LinkedIn, ‘neo pronouns’ known as ‘new personal pronouns’ have emerged. Instead of being called ‘she’ or ‘he,’ some refer to their gender as ‘Xe.’ This trend of respecting and embracing diverse identities becomes even more pronounced in the Z generation, where identities are fragmented and recombined into ‘particulate identities.’

Underlying this trend is the political correctness pursued by the M generation. It means avoiding expressions that contain prejudice related to race, gender, sexual orientation, occupation, and so on. The University Tomorrow 20s Research Institute, which studies the MZ generation (Millennials + Z generation), analyzed that the MZ generation is “a generation that believes you should respect others as much as you want to be respected,” and “they raise their voices for the community and show a ‘good-natured meddling’ attitude.”

This also provides a clue as to why the M generation reacts sensitively to environmental issues. In a survey conducted last year by Deloitte Global targeting 8,412 M generation and 14,808 Z generation individuals across 46 countries, Korean M generation respondents identified ‘living expenses’ (49%) as their biggest concern, followed by ‘climate change’ (28%). The report analyzed that this is a common trend among M generations worldwide. They aim for a broad concept of community that coexists not only with humans but also with nature.

The M generation does not care whether you live alone, live together, or with whom you live. They will respect whatever form of life you choose to live. And society will gradually move toward accepting new concepts of citizens and families.