The number of newly married couples came to 1.03 million last year (2022), down from the previous year’s 1.1 million, according to the data from Statistics Korea. (Image: Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 11 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of newly married couples fell more than 6 percent to come to around 1 million in 2022, and the proportion of the couples having no children reached an all-time high, data showed Monday.
The number of newly married couples came to 1.03 million last year, down from the previous year’s 1.1 million, according to the data from Statistics Korea.
The newlyweds here refer to couples who tied the knot for the first time in the five years up to November 2022.
The figure has shown a downtrend from 1.47 million in 2015 to 1.32 million in 2018 and 1.18 million in 2020.
Of the couples, 46.4 percent did not have children, a record high proportion since 2015, when Statistics Korea began compiling the related data.
The number of babies born to the newlyweds came to 0.65 in 2022, also an all-time low. The comparable figure for 2021 came to 0.66.
South Korea has been struggling with a low birthrate and population aging, as many young people opt to postpone or give up on getting married or having babies in line with changing social norms and lifestyles, as well as in the face of high home prices, a tough job market and an economic slowdown.
The country’s total fertility rate — the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime — came to just 0.79 in the third quarter of 2023.
It was much lower than the replacement level of 2.1 that would keep South Korea’s population stable at 52 million.
(Yonhap)
