"Ten Million Families": Statistic or Metaphor?

This article assesses the number of surviving first-generation divided family members in Korea. The estimates of scholars and government agencies of population movement in the two periods in which the majority of families are compared: the liberation period (August 15, 1945, to June 25, 1950) and the Korean War (June 25, 1950, to July 27, 1953). In this way, an estimate is made of the number of surviving first-generation divided-family members and of the veracity of the oft-used concept of "ten million families." The article also examines another less frequently mentioned group of divided-family members: Japanese Koreans "repatriated" to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea between 1959 and 1984.