Nearly 50% of married couples have 2 incomes

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Nearly 50% of married couples have 2 incomes

Almost half of married couples in Korea had two incomes last year, government data showed Tuesday.

As of October last year, there were 5.68 million dual-income households, up 4 percent, or 219,000, from 5.45 million recorded in 2017, according to Statistics Korea. The latest number accounts for 46.3 percent of the 12.25 million married couples in Korea and is the highest ratio posted since the government started compiling data in 2011.

The number of income-earning married couples decreased 55,000 to 9.874 million in 2018 from 2017.

All age levels saw significant increases in the proportion of married dual-income households. Statistics Korea measures the age and education level of each couple based on the registered head of the household’s information. In Korea this is most likely to be the husband.

Among married couples in their 40s, 54.2 percent had two incomes, up 2.1 percentage points from 2017. Among couples in their 30s, 49.9 percent had two incomes, 6.2 percentage points higher than a year earlier.

For couples between the age of 50 and 64, dual-income earners accounted for 50.5 percent, up 1.8 percentage points, while the number for those aged between 15 and 29 rose 1.8 percentage points to 38.6 percent.

In terms of education level, dual-income households accounted for 48.6 percent of all college-graduated married couples, while the ratio stood at 47.1 percent for high school graduates. The proportion for middle school graduates was at 38.8 percent.

Married couples with children under 18 were more inclined to earn dual-incomes. Although the number of married couples with children decreased 130,000 to 4.4 million in 2018 from a year earlier, the proportion of dual-income households increased 2.4 percentage points to 51.0 percent.

BY KO JUN-TAE [ko.juntae@joongang.co.kr]
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