"Experts and recent surveys describe a profound shift in attitudes in South Korea, where reuniting the peninsula, and the Korean people, was long held as a sacrosanct goal."

"These days, younger South Koreans in particular are far more likely to see the idea of reintegrating their prosperous capitalist democracy with the impoverished, totalitarian North as unrealistic and undesirable. 'I personally wouldn’t welcome reunification because it would create a burden for us, as we would have to help rebuild the North Korean economy,' said Park Min-cheol, 22, a college student. Young Koreans say they are more concerned about pressing domestic issues — like unemployment, and whether they can live as well as their parents did — than the enormously costly, complex and hypothetical task of reunifying with the North. The reunification of Germany in 1990 serves to some as an example of how arduous, and expensive, rejoining two very different societies can be, and the economic gap between the two Koreas today is much wider than it was between East and West Germany. In polls, fewer respond to the old appeals to common ethnic heritage...."

From "Olympic Dreams of a United Korea? Many in South Say, ‘No, Thanks'" (NYT).