72 pct of Married Women Would Rather Get a Divorce if They Cannot Solve Marital Conflict

Although there were no significant differences in statistics by age, the higher the age, the higher the number of people who supported divorce as a solution to marital conflict. (image: Pixabay)

SEOUL, Apr. 22 (Korea Bizwire) — More than seven out of ten married women thought that it would be better to part if they were not able to resolve a conflict with their spouse.

Six out of ten people agreed on starting a new life by remarrying after divorce or death.

These results are based on the “2018 National Survey on Birth and Family Health and Welfare” from the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs which was released on Sunday, a survey conducted with the participation of 11,207 married women aged between 15 and 49 that examined the acceptability of divorce.

Among the respondents, 72.2 percent said it would be better to get a divorce if they weren’t able to resolve their conflicts, with 18.1 percent expressing total agreement with getting a divorce and 54.1 percent expressing general agreement with divorce.

Only 4.3 percent said they strongly disapproved of the plan, saying they did not approve of divorce at all.

When dividing respondents who agreed on divorce by their residence, rural areas with a conservative and traditional tendency toward families (68.6 percent) were slightly less likely to accept divorce than those in large cities (74.1 percent) or smaller cities (71.6 percent).

Although there were no significant differences in statistics by age, the higher the age, the higher the number of people who supported divorce as a solution to marital conflict.

This is a different result from the expectation that the older you are, the more traditional you will be regarding marriage.

In particular, 67.1 percent of married women supported the view that they could divorce even if they had children.

In response, the research team interpreted that the tendency to consider divorce as a possible alternative to marriage as a way to address obstacles that may occur during marriage, regardless of the existence of children, is very common in South Korean society.

D. M. Park (dmpark@koreabizwire.com)