[Choice Times=Jeong-Seok Han, Political Commentator]

President Lee Jae-myung said on the 19th, during a Fair Trade Commission policy briefing, “Sanitary pads in our country are extremely expensive. On average, they are said to be about 39% more expensive than in other countries,” and added, “Please investigate why this is the case.”

The article below does not reflect the position of this newspaper. It is published to provide diverse perspectives. (Editor’s note)

It is being claimed that sanitary pad prices in Korea are a problem because they are too high.

Frankly, I do not understand this at all. Based on the economics I know, products with such massive demand inevitably undergo product differentiation. There are always entry-level products and premium products.

The price comparison released by an organization calling itself a women consumers’ group is frankly sloppy. Prices must be compared based on identical specifications sold under identical conditions.

A 331-won Korean product and a 181-won Japanese product are not of the same quality nor sold under the same conditions. The comparison simply averaged prices of similar categories, and the Korean average includes many high-quality products with premium eco-friendly materials and specifications. Claims that sanitary pads are expensive rely on what amounts to “deceptive statistics.”

For mass-demand, mass-supply goods of this kind, a utility-cost equilibrium is naturally achieved.

If three companies account for more than 90% of the market, that means consumers have consistently chosen products that match their perceived utility. If consumers were dissatisfied with these three companies, cheaper and satisfactory alternatives would emerge at any time in the absence of special regulation.

The Korean sanitary pad market can reasonably be viewed as an efficiently balanced market. That is precisely why a natural oligopoly has formed. For late-entering firms, it is simply not feasible to produce and supply sanitary pads with the same specifications at lower prices than the incumbents.

Shoes—something people must wear—also come in cheap and expensive versions. That is why claims that “shoes are too expensive” are meaningless.

Whether it is shoes or sanitary pads, if women genuinely feel they are expensive, it is because their income has not increased in line with the price increases of the quality products they wish to purchase.

The claim that Korean sanitary pads are uniquely expensive combines “eco” narratives with gender discourse, functioning as an anti-market, anti-business ideology.

#ConsumerChoice #MarketEconomyPerspective #SanitaryPadPriceDebate