More than 65 percent of South Korean singles aged 25 to 49 are willing to get married, up from six months ago, according to a survey released by South Korea. Reports suggest that South Koreans are becoming more positive about marriage and fertility.
According to a survey released by the Presidential Commission on social and demographic policies for the elderly, 65.4 percent of single respondents aged 25 to 49 said, they have specific plans or hope to get married someday, up from 61 percent in a similar survey six months ago.
It is worth noting that 60 per cent of single women in their 30s are willing to marry, compared with 48.4 per cent in previous surveys.
The survey also showed that single people are more positive about having children, with more than 68 percent of respondents saying they need children, up from 61.1 percent in the previous survey. More than 48.1 percent of single women in their 20s wanted to have children, up from 34.4 percent.
Similar changes were observed in married people without children. Asked if they would like to have children, 50.7 percent said yes, up from 42.4 percent.
Earlier figures from the Korean statistics office showed that 230,000 babies were born in South Korean 2023, the lowest number since the country began total fertility rate in 1970 — the average number of children per woman of child-bearing age, the 2023 fell for the eighth consecutive year since 2016 to a record low of 0.72, well below the 2.1 needed to stabilise the country’s population.
South Korean president Yoon Seok-hye announced on June 19 that the country would enter a“Population emergency” from that day, stressing the need to make every effort to tackle the low fertility problem.
Because of the continuing birth rate, the South Korean government has introduced a number of policies in recent years to encourage childbearing, such as transportation subsidies for pregnant women, post-natal care subsidies, medical examination fees subsidies and so on. According to the Korea Times, the government’s policy of encouraging marriage and childbearing has helped, and South Korean total fertility rate is expected to rise to 0.74 this year.