SEOUL — Fewer than half of South Koreans now say reunification with North Korea is necessary, according to a new government-backed survey, marking the second consecutive year that support has remained below the 50% threshold.
The Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) survey found that 48.2% of respondents considered unification necessary, down slightly from 49% in 2025.
The findings point to changing public attitudes toward the decades-long division of the Korean Peninsula, particularly among younger South Koreans.
Younger generations show lower support
The age gap was one of the clearest findings in the survey.
More than 60% of respondents born in 1960 or earlier said unification with North Korea was necessary. By contrast, less than 40% of those born in 1991 or later expressed the same view.
The results suggest that perceptions of the two Koreas differ considerably across generations, with younger South Koreans having grown up decades after the Korean War and in a society where the division of the peninsula has been a long-established reality.
Peaceful coexistence gains support
The survey also asked respondents about the idea that unification would not be necessary if the two Koreas could coexist peacefully.
66.9% agreed with that proposition, up from 63.2% a year earlier, according to KINU.
That finding indicates that a significant portion of the South Korean public distinguishes between maintaining peaceful relations and pursuing formal political unification.
Interest in North Korea also declines
Another notable result was the level of public interest in North Korea.
70.3% of respondents said they were not interested in North Korea, an increase of 2.2 percentage points from the previous year and the highest level recorded since KINU began its annual survey in 2014.
Meanwhile, 71.6% agreed with the perception that North Korea is a separate state.
The findings come as South Korean public opinion on inter-Korean relations continues to evolve, with questions of security, coexistence and national identity increasingly viewed through different generational perspectives.
Another recent poll shows a similar generational pattern
A separate survey released earlier in September by Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies found even lower support for unification: 39% said it was necessary, compared with 41.1% the previous year.
That survey also found support at just 25.2% among people in their 20s and 27% among those in their 30s.
Because the two surveys were conducted by different institutions, with different samples and methodologies, their percentages should not be treated as directly interchangeable. Both, however, documented lower levels of support among younger respondents.
The KINU survey was conducted among 1,003 adults from April 2 to April 24, with a margin of error of ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.
The latest figures add another layer to the continuing debate over how South Koreans view the future of the peninsula — and whether peaceful coexistence may increasingly be considered separately from the goal of eventual unification.
WWC ONE MEDIA G,A
