A June 2021 Hankook Research national survey (n = 1,000 adults aged 18 and over, nationally representative) found that 44% agreed that mandatory military service has more disadvantages than advantages overall, with the rate rising to 62% among those in their 20s who described service as a “waste of time.” This is an attitudinal cost-benefit appraisal across the general adult population, not a retrospective regret question put only to veterans. An event-study (difference-in-differences) analysis of South Korean conscription confirmed objective lasting costs: compulsory military service significantly increased alcohol and tobacco use, with these adverse health effects persisting for years after discharge. The combination of attitudinal negative evaluation (44%) and documented long-lasting physical health costs provides a consistent picture of a substantial action-side downside for standard military service.
The alternative civilian service path, legal only since 30 June 2020, carries its own documented costs. No direct survey of alternative-service completers’ regret or social consequences exists, so the inaction-side rate here is an editorial proxy rather than a measured figure. What is documented is the punitive structural design: the term runs 36 months — twice the 18-21-month active-duty service — and participants are confined to barrack-style lodging inside correctional facilities, a design that the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (BYU) analysis found “has failed to remove the stigma associated with conscientious objectors.” The 15-18 additional months of foregone earnings and career development, the prison-facility confinement, and the residual social stigma all fall on the entire alternative-service population, which remains small and overwhelmingly composed of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The 15-point gap between the two regret proxies (44% vs. 29%) supports an action-dominates pattern, meaning standard military service generates more negative evaluation than the alternative civilian path in the current cultural climate. This is a significant finding in the South Korean context, where military service has historically been central to male identity and social standing. The action-side rate may understate true regret due to social desirability: admitting that mandatory service was negative in a military-valorising culture carries stigma, and the 44% attitudinal measure likely represents those whose experience was negative enough to overcome that barrier to candid reporting. The inaction-side rate is an editorial proxy, not a measured survey — no direct study of alternative-service completers’ regret exists. The alternative service cohort also remains small and concentrated among Jehovah’s Witnesses, so any inaction-side estimate reflects an unrepresentative early-adopter population rather than the broader population of men who might choose the alternative path if social stigma declines.