50% of couples married five years or less don't have children but debt

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50% of couples married five years or less don't have children but debt

Published: 12 Dec. 2025, 18:11 Updated: 12 Dec. 2025, 19:13

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Couples browse wedding dresses at a wedding fair at Coex in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, on July 6. [NEWS1]

Half of couples in Korea who have been married for one to five years do not have children, and dual-income spouses who do not own a home are especially less likely to have kids, according to new data released by the Ministry of Data and Statistics on Friday.

The figures also showed eight out of 10 married couples are in debt, and their liabilities exceed twice their income.

As of last year, there were 952,000 couples in Korea who had been married for five years or less, a decline of 2.3 percent, or 22,000 couples, compared to the previous year.

When statistics on married couples were first compiled in 2015, the total number stood at 1.47 million, but that figure has declined each year since, falling below the 1 million mark for the first time in 2023.

However, the pace of decline has been slowing, from 7 percent in 2021 to 6.3 percent in 2022 and 2.3 percent in 2023.

Last year, the number of first-year newlywed couples reached 210,000, an increase of 9.8 percent, or 19,000 couples. This trend is attributed in part to the so-called echo boomers — those born between 1991 and 1995 as children of Korea’s baby boomers — entering their early 30s, the typical age of marriage.

Newborns are seen at a hospital in Goyang, Gyeonggi, on Nov. 26. [YONHAP]

The number of married couples having children continues to decline. Among first-time married couples, the proportion with children fell by 1.3 percentage points from the previous year to 51.2 percent.

That figure has steadily dropped from 64.5 percent in 2015.

As of last year, 27.4 percent of couples married five years or less did not have children. The average number of children per couple also decreased to 0.61.

Whether a couple owns a home and whether both spouses work were found to be correlated to childbearing. Among dual-income couples, 49.1 percent had children, compared to 55.2 percent of single-income couples — a gap of 6.1 percentage points.

Among couples who owned their homes, 56.6 percent had children, 9.4 percentage points higher than the 47.2 percent among renters. The average number of children was 0.67 for homeowners and 0.56 for renters — a difference of 0.11 percentage points.

Seoul, where dual-income households are common and homeownership is difficult, had the lowest average number of children nationwide at 0.51. The gap between homeowners and renters in Seoul, which was 0.6 versus 0.47, was wider than the gap between dual-income and single-income couples at 0.51 versus 0.53.

Children are seen attending a kids' fair at Coex Magok in Gangseo District, western Seoul, on Nov. 7. [NEWS1]

“Many housing and other support policies for married couples often benefit only those with high incomes and stable jobs,” said Lee Chul-hee, a professor of economics at Seoul National University. “We also need to consider ways to increase support for low-income married couples, such as expanding the supply of rental housing.”

Still, the proportion of married couples who own homes rose to 42.7 percent, up 1.9 percentage points from the previous year. That figure peaked at 42.9 percent in 2019 but fell to 40.5 percent in 2022 during the Moon Jae-in administration due to surging housing prices.

“The increase in homeownership was due in part to policy loans, such as the newborn special loan introduced last year,” a Data Ministry official said.

The newborn special loan offers mortgage financing at lower-than-market rates to families without a home that have given birth to or adopted a child within two years of the loan application date.

Apartments remained the most common type of housing among married couples, accounting for 77 percent — a 2.5 percentage point increase from the previous year. That proportion has been climbing steadily since 2019, when it was 69.8 percent.

A customer is seen getting loan counselling at a bank in Seoul on Dec. 10. [NEWS1]

The average annual income of married couples was 76.29 million won ($51,800), up 5 percent, or 3.64 million won, from the previous year.

The proportion of married couples earning more than 100 million won a year rose by 3.2 percentage points to 23.9 percent. This was partly driven by an increase in dual-income couples, who made up 59.7 percent — a 1.5 percentage point rise from the previous year.

Although income increased, debt grew even more. A total of 86.9 percent of all married couples held debt, with a median loan balance of 179 million won — up 5 percent from the previous year's 170.51 million won.

Among couples with loans, 24 percent had debts exceeding 300 million won, an increase of 2.8 percentage points from 2023. The rise was largely due to greater use of housing-related loans, including the newborn special loan.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY AHN HYO-SEONG [[email protected]]