Marriages tumble as thoughts on matrimony shift

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Marriages tumble as thoughts on matrimony shift

A wedding is held at a wedding hall in Seoul. [NEWS1]

A wedding is held at a wedding hall in Seoul. [NEWS1]

  
The number of marriages have tumbled to an all-time low in Korea.
 
In a country where 97.5 percent of babies are born to wed couples, that means birthrates are unlikely to pick up soon.
 
According to a report on marriage and divorce released by Statistics Korea on Thursday, there were 191,690 marriages last year.
 
This was down 0.4 percent from the previous year and the lowest figures since the government began compiling data in 1970.
 
The number of marriages plummeted during the pandemic, decreasing 10.7 percent on year in 2020 and continuing to drop from there.
 
The crude marriage rate, or the number of marriages per 1,000 people, dropped 0.1 to 3.7, also the lowest ever.
 
There were around 400,000 marriages a year back in the 1990s. This fell into the low 300,000s in the 2000s and below 300,000 in 2016. By 2021, the number sank below 200,000.
 
Changing views toward marriage played a role in the decline.
 
Of the 2,041 people between the ages of 18 and 34 surveyed by the National Youth Policy Institute in 2021, only 39.1 percent said getting married was necessary, down from 56 percent in 2016.
 
“The population of people in their 30s, when many people get married, decreased and young single people view marriage differently,” Lim Young-il, director of the population census division at Statistics Korea, said in a press briefing Thursday, adding that the change may be one of the reasons why the numbers are not recovering in the post-pandemic period.
 
Another contributing factor is late marriages, an ongoing trend.
 
"More women are entering society and emphasizing economic independence, and it's become more difficult for men and women of low economic status to marry," said Lee Sung-yong, head of the Population Association of Korea.
 
Late marriages mean late childbirth, which eventually leads to having less kids, according to Lee.
 
Men were getting married at 33.7 years of age on average last year, and women at 31.3, up 0.4 and 0.2 years, respectively, from the year before. In 2012, men got married when they were 29.8 years old and women at 27.
 
Seoul residents got married the latest. Men in Seoul entered their first marriage at 34.2 years of age and women at 32.2.
 
While some blame the slump in the economy for fewer marriages and babies, others think the downturn affected divorces, too.
 
“The rise in uncertainty stemming from Covid-19 and the recession delayed divorces,” said Lim Chae-woong, an attorney at Bae Kim & Lee LLC and former presiding judge in Seoul Family Court. “The delay in legal procedures might have played a part as well.”
 
The number of divorce cases dropped 8.3 percent on year to 93,232 and fell below the 100,000 mark for the first time in 25 years.
 
The fact that relatively more people were born between 1991 and 1995 is a thin silver lining for Korea's demographics. More people may get married as individuals born between those years reach the average marriage age.
 
“The number of marriages decreased on year in the first half of last year, but rose in the latter half,” the population census director said.
 
“As people who postponed their weddings during the pandemic tie the knot, the rise is expected to continue through the first half of this year.” Lim added.

BY KIM KI-HWAN [sohn.dongjoo@joongang.co.kr]
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