Marriages in South Korea reach four-decade low

BY Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA (AA) – The number of South Koreans getting married reached a four-decade low in 2018, government data showed Wednesday.

According to Korean news agency Yonhap, getting married is becoming a costly affair making people avoid getting married in times of economic stress.

“Young people delay marriage amid a prolonged economic slowdown,” Yonhap reported.

A total of 257,622 people got married last year compared to 264,455 in 2017, the statistics department of South Korea said.

“The figure is the lowest since 1972, when the number of couples who got married came to 244,780,” the report added.

The figures showed that the number of divorces has risen by 2.5 percent in 2018 reaching 108,684.

The report said young Koreans are “delaying marriage or giving up on marriage altogether, and having babies as they struggle with future uncertainties”.

It also said that average age of South Korean men getting married reached a record high of 33.1 years in 2018, compared with 32.9 years in 2017 while the average marrying age of first-time brides stood at 30.4 years in 2018, up from 30.2 years in 2017.

An increasing number of South Koreans are marrying foreigners, Yonhap reported, with 22,698 such marriages registered in 2018, up 8.9 percent from a year earlier.