Koreans increasingly resent the elderly, whom they often blame for holding the country back with their political and social views and for their sheer numbers as society ages.

The Internet is flooded with malicious comments about old people, presaging a revolt against the Confucian tradition of respect for elders that has been a cornerstone of Korean society. But the result is that older people feel increasingly marginalized in a society they worked so hard to build after the war.

The National Human Rights Commission produced the first-ever report on the rights of senior citizens this year based on a survey of human rights abuses and attitudes toward the elderly. The commission questioned 1,000 senior citizens over 65 and 500 people between 19 to 64.

It found an alarming proportion of young Koreans are pessimistic about old age. Some 80.9 percent of respondents aged 19 to 39 said society is ageist, and that is why the rights of elderly people are violated. But among old people, only 35.1 percent thought that.

But the main reason is that the young in Korea, as elsewhere in the world, feel that the old hog all the wealth and welfare. Some 56.6 percent of younger respondents worried that a growing employment for older people is robbing young people of their jobs.

Also, 77.1 percent of them feared they will have to shoulder an increasing burden of welfare costs for the elderly, and 80 percent that their pension payments will decline due to the soaring costs of supporting the elderly.

Again the generational conflict was more keenly felt by younger respondents with 81.9 percent, compared to only 44.3 percent of senior citizens.