78 percent of S. Korean women feel the need to get cosmetic surgery

Posted on : 2007-02-21 20:40 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST

Nearly eight out of 10 women in South Korea believe cosmetic surgery is necessary to meet the expectations of an appearance-focused society, according to a survey released Wednesday.

The survey, conducted in September on 810 female residents of the capital area who are aged 18 or older, showed 77.5 percent of the respondents say cosmetic surgery is necessary to make them look more attractive.

Only 2.1 percent of the women surveyed said cosmetic surgery is not necessary while 20.4 percent said people should not have the surgery if possible, said Eom Hyeon-sin, a student of the fashion design department at Kyung Hee University, who conducted the survey as part of her doctoral thesis.

Those who said they had already had cosmetic surgery totaled 47.3 percent, according to the survey.

The rate was 61.5 percent of young women between ages 25 and 29 while 56.6 percent and 42.9 percent of the women in the 30s and 40s answered they did, respectively. Nearly 40 percent of those aged 50 or older said they had experienced cosmetic surgery.

Asked whether they have suffered stress because of their appearance, 69.9 percent said yes. Young women turned out to be under the most stress, with 79.6 percent of those aged 18-24 and 76.9 percent of those aged 25-29 saying they were stressed because of their appearance.
Seoul, Feb. 21 (Yonhap News)

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