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SEOUL, Feb. 25 (Korea Bizwire) – A substantial number of South Korean elementary, middle and high school students no longer think that marriage is an obligation.
ChildFund Korea, a Seoul-based charity organization for children with mental and physical disabilities, conducted a survey of 708 elementary, middle and high school students.
Only 16.7 percent of the respondents said that marriage was something that they had to do, while 67.4 percent said that marriage was not an obligation.
Somewhat surprisingly, 21.9 percent of the students said that marriage would have a positive impact on their happiness, while 32.5 percent said it would have a negative impact.
Roughly half of the respondents showed positive awareness about pre-marriage cohabitation, about three times higher than those who showed negative awareness about it (17.1 percent).
At 70.3 percent, a strong majority of the students said they didn’t have to have children even after getting married.
In response to a question asking if having a child makes a family happier, 32.5 percent disagreed, while only 21.9 percent agreed.
Nonetheless, 70.1 percent of the students believed that having children would be helpful for society.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
