That Empty Pink Seat on the Seoul Subway Isn't Free

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You squeeze onto Line 2 at rush hour and spot it: one empty seat at the end of the long bench, bright pink, with a pink patch on the floor in front of it. Nobody standing around it is taking it, and that's not an accident. It's an imsanbu baeryeoseok (임산부 배려석), a seat set aside for pregnant passengers, and the local norm is to leave it empty even when nobody pregnant is in sight. Do the same and you're fine.

A Seoul subway bench with gray seats in the middle and a pink seat at each end, with pink floor markings in front of the pink seats
The pink seats sit at both ends of the middle bench, with matching marks on the floor. Photo: Garam, Attribution license, via Wikimedia Commons (2018)

Every car on Seoul's Lines 1 to 8 has two of them, one at each end of the middle bench. The city counted 7,334 pink seats across 3,667 cars at the end of October 2024, and Line 9 adds another 636. The city's seat guide dates them to 2013, when they were marked with stickers, and to a pink redesign in 2015 meant to make them easier to spot. In other words, they were built to be hard to miss, so "I didn't see it" isn't much of an excuse.

Empty doesn't mean free

The logic clicks once you hear it. Early in a pregnancy there may be nothing to see, so the person who needs the seat can look like any other rider. If the pink seat is already empty, she can sit down without explaining herself to a stranger. If you're sitting in it, she has to either ask you or stand.

So treat pink as taken. Skip it for two stops, skip it when the car is half empty, skip it when you're tired from walking all day. Seoul Metro's security staff on patrol have been asking riders to keep these seats open, so this isn't just a polite suggestion from strangers on the internet.

One mix-up to clear up: pink doesn't mean women. It means pregnant. A woman who isn't pregnant has no more claim to that seat than anyone else in the car.

The corner seats have a longer list

At each end of the car, next to the doors between carriages, there are short benches with pictograms above them: an older person, someone with a cane, a pregnant woman, an adult with a small child. These are gyotongyakja bohoseok (교통약자 보호석), which replaced the older name noyakjaseok (노약자석) you'll still hear. Seoul Metro counts 12 of these per car on older trains and 8 on newer ones.

The group allowed to sit there is bigger than "seats for the elderly" makes it sound. Seoul Metro's position, based on Korea's law on transport-vulnerable passengers, is that older adults, people with disabilities, pregnant passengers, people traveling with infants and children can all use them. If you're carrying a toddler or limping on a sprained ankle, sit there without guilt. If you're a healthy 30-year-old with a backpack, leave them alone even when they're empty.

The plain seats in between are for the rest of us. Since 2008 the whole middle bench has also been marked as a give-it-up-when-someone-needs-it bench, so standing up for an older rider there is expected too.

These counts apply to Seoul Metro's Lines 1 to 8. Light rail lines such as the Sillim Line set their seats up differently, so look for the pink color and the pictograms instead of counting seats.

If you're the one who needs the seat

Pregnant and someone is in the pink seat? You can ask them directly with imsanbuyeyo (임산부예요), "I'm pregnant." If you'd rather not, the Seoul Metro FAQ gives two other routes: call the Seoul Metro call center at 1577-1234, or report it in the Ttota Jihacheol (또타지하철) app. What happens next is an announcement inside the train asking passengers to keep the seat for pregnant riders.

Know the limit before you count on it. An announcement is a nudge, not enforcement. Nobody from staff walks over and moves the person, so on a short hop the direct ask or the corner seats will get you sitting sooner.

Next time you board, look for pink before you look for an empty seat. If it's pink, keep walking.

Sources checked October 24, 2026

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