Statistics Korea Microdata Analysis Results
'82% of Marriage Registrations Within One Year After Wedding'
The proportion of so-called 'pseudo single' individuals who are married but have not registered their marriage has rapidly increased.
According to an analysis of microdata from Statistics Korea on the 15th, out of 193,657 marriages last year, 161,171 marriage registrations (82.23%) were made within less than one year after the wedding. Breaking this down further, the number of marriage registrations made before the wedding was 8,708 (4.50%), and those made within less than one year after the wedding was 152,463 (78.73%).
The proportion of marriage registrations made within less than one year after the wedding has been steadily decreasing. The related rate, which was 89.11% in 2014, dropped to 87.18% in 2020, then further declined to 85.41% in 2021 and 84.69% in 2022. This indicates that newlyweds are increasingly postponing their marriage registration even after getting married.
The proportion of 'delayed marriage registrations,' where the registration is postponed for a considerable period, has also sharply increased. As of last year, the proportion of cases where the marriage registration took two years or more after the wedding was 8.15%. This rate had remained in the 5% range from 2014 (5.21%) to 2020 (5.74%), but jumped to the 7% range after 2021 (7.06%) and 2022 (7.85%). In particular, the proportion of marriage registrations delayed between three and four years after the wedding was 1.57% last year, nearly double compared to 2014 (0.84%). The rate of marriage registrations delayed for five years or more also slightly increased from 2.08% to 2.73% during the same period.
The biggest factor cited for newlyweds delaying their marriage registration is disadvantages in subscription and loans. Until now, in the case of subscription, if a spouse had a winning history in the lifetime first special supply, the other spouse was completely ineligible to apply. Also, for newlywed loans, the income requirement applied to combined spousal income, making marriage registration disadvantageous. Because of this, the term 'marriage penalty' emerged.
The government has belatedly recognized the problem and started improving the system. At the follow-up meeting to the livelihood discussion held last month, it was decided to raise the income standard for the Buttress Jeonse Fund loan from the current combined spousal income of 75 million KRW to 100 million KRW, and the combined spousal income standard for the newborn special loan from the current 130 million KRW to 200 million KRW. At that time, President Yoon Suk-yeol said, "Let's abolish all marriage penalties so that the marriage penalty can turn into a marriage merit."
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