A wedding ceremony is in progress in this file photo (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — Marrying couples in South Korea in their 30s have become more common at wedding halls than those in their 20s, a statistics agency said Tuesday.
About 193,000 couples got married in 2021 with 157,000 weddings involving wives getting married for the first time, according to Statistics Korea.
Sorted by age, 76,900 couples (49.1 percent) got married in their 30s, followed by those in their 20s (71,263 couples, 45.5 percent), and those in their 40s (6,564 couples, 4.2 percent).
The proportion of women in their 30s getting married for the first time surpassed those in their 20s for the first time since statistical surveys began in 1990.
In 1990, 333,000 women got married for the first time in their 20s, 18 times more than those in their 30s.
By the year 2000, however, the gap narrowed to eight times more, and by 2010 it was only double.
The proportion of men getting married for the first time in their 30s already surpassed those in their 20s in 2005.
In 1990, the number of men getting married for the first time (289,000) surpassed those in their 30s (72,000). The average age, however, has continued to rise ever since.
In 1991, the average age for an individual’s first marriage was 24.8 years for women and 27.9 years for men. By 2021, the average age jumped to 31.1 years for women and 33.4 for men.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
