First-borns often win presidential elections

Park Geun-hye, left, presidential candidate of the ruling Saenuri Party, and her rival Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party wave their hands to their cheering supporters during rallies in Dangjin, and Daejeon, South Chungcheong Province, respectively, Wednesday. / Yonhap

Park, Moon are ‘functional’ first children marking rare cases in Korean history

Frank Sulloway Professor at the University of California at Berkeley

Many American presidents, including Barack Obama and his predecessor George W. Bush, have been either first-born sons or the eldest children in their families.

Is the tendency featuring “first-born children born to rule” also applicable to Korean political leaders when explaining their rise to power?

The answer is yes when the question is limited to major presidential candidates on the campaign trail. But individual biographical cases of past and sitting presidents show different aspects.

The two most viable presidential candidates vying for the presidency now are the first born child and the eldest son in their families. Park Geun-hye, the presidential candidate of the ruling Saenuri Party, is the first-born of three children.

Her rival Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) is also the eldest son in his family. He has an elder sister and two younger siblings, a sister and a brother.

This photo shows Park Geun-hye, right, and her late mother and first lady Yuk Young-soo. / Korea Times file

Birth order is the only thing the two candidates have in common as they seemingly have few similarities in their childhood years, career paths and educational background. Frank Sulloway, the author of “Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives” (1996), characterized Park as “a functional first-born.”

Park, also the daughter of the late President Park Chung-hee, has a step-sister who is older than her. But the candidate did not live with her step-sibling while she was raised.

“A person who is a first-born of three children, in the family in which she grew up, is a functional first-born,” Sulloway, also adjunct professor of University of California at Berkeley, said in an email interview with The Korea Times earlier this week.

“The fact that she did not live with her older step-sibling is the defining condition in her being a first-born rather than the second of four siblings.”

Sulloway noted functional birth order is critical for personality development.

“In my book ‘Born to Rebel,’ I make the distinction between biological and functional birth order. What we want to know, in each individual biographical case, is functional birth order, not biological one.”

Moon Jae-in poses in school uniform in this undated photo. / Korea Times file

Functional first-borns

Although she has an elder step-sister, Park was raised as a first-born child. She served as an acting first lady for nearly five years after her mother, Yuk Young-soo, was assassinated in August 1974.

On behalf of her late mother, the eldest daughter of President Park met foreign leaders and their wives, distinguished guests and people from all walks of life under that capacity until she left Cheong Wa Dae after her father was also assassinated in October 1979.

Park’s rival Moon is the second child of four children. He is the first son in his family.

The human rights lawyer-turned-presidential candidate is also considered as a functional first-born, considering that as an eldest son, he was raised and treated like an actually first-born child.

Like Moon, many first sons of the older generation received more parental investments and affection than any other siblings as they have lived in the prevalent male-dominated Confucian culture. The eldest son used to inherit family assets in the past and they were regarded as representatives of their family.

Moon’s early childhood years and family background were very different from those of Park as he was born into a poor family having struggled to make ends meet.

His father was a city government official in North Korea before the Korean War (1950-53) broke out.

Escaping from the North after the war, his parents settled down in the southeastern island of Geoje near the port city of Busan. His father worked as a laborer in the prison camp on the island. As his father’s salary was so small, his mother had to work.

His mother used to carry Moon on her back when she went to the nearest market in Busan to sell eggs to make money. His mother had to walk for several hours for the return trips.

Moon excelled in class and was admitted to locally renowned Gyeongnam Middle School without getting any private tutoring. He recalled that most of his classmates took private lessons before passing the entrance exam of the school.

Moon later said poverty taught him to be independent from his early age. “No matter how hard the challenges facing me, I tried to overcome them,” he said.

Born to rule

Sulloway said first-borns are overrepresented among people listed in the Who’s Who, among American presidents as well as other world political leaders and eminent scientists, such as Nobel Prize winners.

Studies showed, compared with later-borns, the first children tend to have higher IQs, better academic performance as a result of parental investment in favor of them.

“Earlier-born children end up with higher IQs because they spend more time growing up within an environment characterized by frequent interactions with parents,” Sulloway said.

Quoting an empirical study, he said older siblings’ tutoring experiences of their younger siblings as surrogate parents also benefit them as they develop their intellectual abilities from such teaching efforts.

Sulloway said birth order has as much influence in East-Asian cultures as it does in Western cultures.

“In fact, in cultures were filial obedience is stressed (as in most East-Asian cultures such as Korea) there is good reason to believe that the tendency for firstborns to conform to parental authority and values will be greater than in other cultures.”

Compared with later-born children, first-borns tend to be responsible, competitive and conventional. The first children tend to maintain the status quo, instead of challenging it.

This born-to-lead tendency of first-born children, however, didn’t perfectly apply to Korean presidents.

Incumbent President Lee Myung-bak is a middle-born. He is the fifth out of seven children and has two elder brothers.

In his biography, the sitting president said that he was asked to sacrifice his secondary education for his brilliant oldest brother, former lawmaker Lee Sang-deuk.

President Lee, who was the third son, was asked not to go to high school because of his parents’ financial constraint. Lee pursued high school education as a part-time student who made money during the daytime and studied at night. He then went to Korea University in Seoul.

Later-born leaders

His mother made a strategic choice and invested in the eldest son. Lee’s eldest brother went to the nation’s top Seoul National University and led a successful career both in the private sector and ensuing political arena as a lawmaker for several decades.

Although first-born children theory didn’t fit President Lee when explaining his rise to power as a leader of the nation, it, however, can be a useful tool to explain his oldest brother’s successful career.

Lee Sang-deuk successfully rose to the executive position of KOLON Group, a global manufacturing company producing chemical, fashion and medical goods, before he joined the political arena as a lawmaker. After serving multiple terms as a lawmaker and vice National Assembly speaker, he retired from politics last year.

Before President Lee, most Korean presidents were also later-borns. His predecessor the late President Roh Moo-hyun and President Park Chung-hee are both the youngest children in their families.

The late former President Kim Dae-jung, also a Nobel Prize winner, was the second of four sons. His predecessor Kim Young-sam is the only son. The former President Roh Tae-woo is the only firstborn among Korean presidents after President Park.

Sulloway noted birth order is not a tool that can explain everything about successful people. He said it explains only some of the variance in personality traits, much of which is either under genetic control or is influenced by other environmental influences and some of which occur within the family and some of which are extra familial. <The Korea Times/Kang Hyun-kyung>