Gettyimagesbank

"I cannot kiss someone who supports President Yoon Suk Yeol, even if it's Cha Eun-woo," an office worker surnamed Lee in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, said.

"Politics is about everyday life, and those who are within the Yoon bloc seem to live a different life from me … It's not a matter of voting for candidate No. 1 (of the ruling party) or No. 2 (of the opposition party), but about the values of life," she said.

Another office worker surnamed Lee, 30, who lives and works in Seoul, shared a similar view, saying she "plans to marry someone with a similar political orientation," if she ever gets married.

"My friends and I try not to talk about our differing political views even when we hang out and have drinks," she said.

A recent survey shows politics have become a deal-breaker in young Koreans' relationships amid political polarization.

According to a report published Sunday by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, in a survey conducted from June to August last year with 3,950 Koreans aged between 19 and 75, 58.2 percent of respondents said they "cannot marry or develop a romantic relationship with someone with a different political orientation."

Such response was more prominent among women (60.9 percent) than men (53.9 percent) and among young people aged between 19 and 34 (51.8 percent) than middle-aged to older people.

Moreover, 33 percent of the respondents said they "cannot drink with friends or acquaintances with different political orientations." Also, 71.4 percent said they would not participate in civic or social group activities if the members' political orientations were different.

Notably, an overwhelming 92.3 percent of respondents said the conflict between conservatives and progressives is the most serious among social conflicts. This was followed by the conflict between regular and irregular workers at 82.2 percent, labor-management conflicts at 79.1 percent, rich and poor at 78 percent, large companies and small and medium-sized enterprises at 71.8 percent and regional conflicts at 71.5 percent.

In particular, the severity of conflict between homeowners and non-owners increased significantly from 49.6 percent in 2018 to 60.9 percent last year. On the other hand, the severity of gender conflicts decreased from 52.28 percent to 46.61 percent during the same period.

In addition, 65.1 percent of the respondents said they found Korean society "unfair." Only 34.9 percent of the total respondents agreed that society is on the fair side.

By area, respondents named judicial and administrative systems at 56.7 percent, corporate performance evaluation and promotion screening at 57.4 percent, recruitment of new employees at 43.4 percent and university entrance exams at 27.4 percent.

As for reasons given for social injustice, corruption of vested rights topped the list with 37.8 percent, followed by an excessive competition system at 26.6 percent, lack of fair evaluation system at 15.0 percent, people's low perception of fairness at 13 percent and restriction on class movement and increased inequality at 7.6 percent.

The result shows that "the level of people's trust in the transparency of society is relatively low," the report said.

It was found that the perceived degree of social integration decreased while the degree of conflict increased.

The degree of social integration was at 4.2 points out of 10, down by 0.39 from 4.59 in 2021. The degree of social conflict went up slightly from 2.88 in 2018 to 2.93 last year.

As for the causes of social conflict, young people and middle-aged people cited deepening uncertainty in the future and the disconnection of social mobility between classes as the main factors. In the case of older adults, the deepening uncertainty in the future and the lack of moral responsibility of the leadership were more prominent.

The report added, "In order to resolve conflicts, confrontations, tensions and antagonisms between members of society, it is necessary to create and activate a public forum where people can encounter and talk with others with different thoughts and positions."