A newborn at a hospital in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — Roughly 20 percent of newlyweds in South Korea going into the fifth year of their marriage do not have children, breaking previous records.
Statistics Korea said Tuesday that 18.3 percent of couples five years into their marriage did not have children as of last year, setting a record in terms of proportion since 2015.
The proportion of fifth-year newlyweds with no children stayed at 12.9 percent as recently as 2015. In 2018, however, the proportion jumped to 16.8 percent.
Experts explain that the increasing population of the so-called DINKs (dual income but no kids) and other couples experiencing pregnancy issues are contributing to such results.
In fact, Statistics Korea reported last year that families without children will account for 21.5 percent (4.8 million households) by 2047.
On the other hand, families with children will shrink down to 16.3 percent (3.6 million households) by the same year.
The proportion of couples without children among all newlyweds one to five years into their marriage was 42.5 percent.
The number of newlyweds is dropping as well. Last year, there were 1.26 million newly married couples who had registered in the previous five years, down 4.7 percent from the previous year.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
