Koreans, along with other East Asian populations, tend to have noticeably less body hair than people of European or African descent. This isn’t an illusion or a cultural grooming choice. It’s rooted in genetics, specifically in how certain gene variants affect hair follicle density, hormone activity in the skin, and the type of hair that grows.
Fewer Hair Follicles Per Square Centimeter
The most straightforward explanation is that Korean skin simply contains fewer hair follicles. A study measuring follicular density from skin biopsy samples found that Koreans had significantly lower total hair counts, including both thick terminal hairs and fine vellus hairs, compared to published data for white and Black populations. Korean subjects in the study averaged roughly 0.6 to 1.2 follicular structures per square millimeter, with total hair counts per biopsy sample consistently on the lower end. Fewer follicles means fewer visible hairs across the body, from the arms and legs to the chest and face.
This isn’t unique to Koreans. The broader pattern holds across East Asian populations, but Korean-specific data confirms the trend clearly. The difference is present from birth, built into the skin’s structure rather than developing later in life.
The EDAR Gene and Hair Type
One of the most important genetic players is a variant called EDAR V370A. This version of the EDAR gene appears at very high frequencies in East Asian and Native American populations but is essentially absent in European and African groups. It’s likely the result of strong natural selection thousands of years ago, though exactly what pressure drove that selection is still debated.
What EDAR V370A does is reshape the hair follicle itself. It produces a more powerful signaling output during development, which enlarges the follicle and changes the hair fiber it produces. Scalp hair becomes thicker, straighter, and more cylindrical in cross-section, giving East Asian hair its characteristic coarse, straight texture. But the same gene variant also appears to reduce body hair growth. Mouse studies confirmed this directly: when researchers boosted EDAR signaling to mimic the East Asian variant, the animals developed thicker head-type hair but showed changes in hair distribution across the body. The gene essentially redirects follicle development, favoring thick scalp hair while limiting hair elsewhere.
Lower Hormone Conversion in the Skin
Body hair growth in adults is largely driven by androgens, particularly a potent form of testosterone called DHT. Your body converts regular testosterone into DHT using an enzyme called 5-alpha reductase, and DHT is what stimulates hair follicles on the chest, back, arms, and face to produce thick, visible hair.
East Asian men, including Koreans, have a notably lower prevalence of androgenetic alopecia (pattern hair loss) compared to Caucasian men, which points to lower DHT activity in the skin. While circulating testosterone levels between populations are broadly similar, the local activity of 5-alpha reductase in skin tissue appears to differ. Less conversion means less DHT reaching the follicles, which translates to less stimulation for body hair growth. This is also why Korean and other East Asian men tend to develop facial hair later and less densely than European men of the same age.
The ABCC11 Gene and Apocrine Gland Development
Another gene worth understanding is ABCC11, which controls the function of apocrine glands, the small glands clustered in areas like the underarms and groin. A single genetic change in ABCC11 (known as the 538G>A variant) dramatically alters these glands. People who carry two copies of the A version (the 538A/A genotype) have reduced apocrine gland development, which leads to dry earwax and minimal body odor. This genotype is extremely common in Korean and other East Asian populations.
While ABCC11 is best known for determining earwax type, the underlying mechanism is broader. The protein it produces affects how apocrine glands develop during puberty. Since apocrine glands and hair follicles share developmental pathways and often occupy the same skin regions, reduced apocrine gland activity correlates with sparser body hair in those areas. It’s not a direct cause of less body hair on its own, but it’s part of the same cluster of traits that distinguish East Asian skin physiology.
Scalp Hair Tells a Different Story
Interestingly, while body hair is sparse, Korean scalp hair actually grows faster than hair in other populations. Measured growth rates for Asian hair average about 411 micrometers per day, compared to 367 for Caucasian hair and 280 for African hair. Individual scalp hairs are also thicker in diameter and more uniformly round in cross-section, giving them a distinctly straight, heavy appearance.
This combination, fast-growing thick scalp hair paired with minimal body hair, is a signature of the EDAR V370A variant’s influence. The gene doesn’t suppress hair growth universally. It reshapes how the body allocates follicle resources, producing robust head hair while keeping body hair fine and sparse.
Why These Traits Became So Common
The evolutionary story behind reduced body hair in humans generally centers on thermoregulation. Early humans lost dense body hair to enable efficient sweating, which allowed them to stay cool while foraging in hot African savannas. Humans still have roughly 60 hairs per square centimeter of “naked” skin, about as many as other primates, but the hairs are miniaturized and unpigmented rather than thick and visible.
For East Asian populations specifically, the EDAR V370A variant likely underwent strong positive selection around 30,000 years ago. Some researchers have proposed that the selection pressure was related to climate adaptation in cold, dry environments, possibly favoring changes in sweat glands, skin thickness, or even mammary gland development rather than hair itself. The reduced body hair may have been a secondary effect, carried along because it was linked to other traits the variant produced. Whatever the original driver, the result is a suite of physical characteristics, including sparser body hair, thicker scalp hair, smaller sweat glands, and dry earwax, that became nearly universal across East Asian populations over thousands of generations.
So when you notice that Koreans tend to have less body hair, you’re seeing the visible output of at least three interacting systems: fewer follicles in the skin, a gene variant that redirects hair growth toward the scalp, and lower local hormone activity that limits how much body hair develops after puberty. None of these are absolute. Individual variation exists, and some Korean men do grow significant body hair. But the population-level pattern is real, measurable, and deeply encoded in genetics.