Marriages climb by 1 percent for first time in 12 years

A passenger passes by a wedding shop in Mapo District, western Seoul, on Tuesday. [YONHAP]

After a persistent contraction in the number of new marriages in Korea, last year finally delivered a long-awaited rise, albeit modest at 1 percent.

Although the figure marks the first on-year increase since 2011, it has hovered below the 200,000-level for three years in a row, according to the data from Statistics Korea Tuesday.

Around 194,000 couples tied the knot in Korea last year to post an increase over the year before.

In 2022, the country witnessed a record low of 192,000 marriages. The number of marriages has gradually declined over the past decades from 435,000 in 1996 to below 400,000 in 1997 and under 200,000 in 2021.

"Last year's increase came as more couples held weddings from the second half of 2022 through the first half of 2023 after delaying their marriages during the earlier stages of the COVID-19 pandemic," an agency official said.

The number of Koreans marrying foreign spouses surged 18.3 percent on year to 20,000 in 2022, meaning that 1 out of every 10 marriages last year was an international marriage.

As for the nationality of foreign wives, Vietnamese accounted for 33.5 percent, followed by China at 18.1 percent. For husbands, the United States took up the most at 27.7 percent, followed by China with 18.4 percent and Vietnam at 15.8 percent.

The average age for first-time grooms reached an all-time high of 34 in 2023, up 0.3 from a year earlier, and that of new brides also rose by 0.2 years to a new record of 31.5.

The number of couples getting divorced fell 0.9 percent on-year to 92,000, the fourth consecutive yearly decrease.

The number of international couples getting divorced, however, advanced 5.1 percent on-year to come to 6,000 cases.

The latest tally came amid the country's ultra-low childbirth.

Korea's total fertility rate, which is the average number of expected births from a woman in her lifetime, fell to a record quarterly low of 0.65 in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The number of babies born in the country shed 7.7 percent on-year to an all-time low of 229,970 in 2023.

The country's birthrate has been on a constant decline over the past years, falling below the 400,000 mark for the first time ever in 2017, below 300,000 in 2020 and under 250,000 in 2022.

Experts say the falling number of marriages has an impact on birthrates as out-of-wedlock births are quite rare in the country.

More than 70 percent of births in 2022 occurred within five years of marriage, data showed.

BY PARK EUN-JEE, YONHAP [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]