

Debt-burdened young Koreans increasingly reluctant to go out and get married



By Jung Min-ho



A 31-year-old office worker, surnamed Cho, said he feels "enormous financial pressure" building ahead of his wedding scheduled for early next year.

After graduating from a U.S. college in 2010, he landed a job at one of Korea's largest heavy industrial firms and now has about 50 million won ($42,000) in his bank account. But, with this money, he knows he cannot even afford a small apartment in northern Gyeonggi Province.

"So I have decided to borrow about 100 million won from my father and bank," he said.

Cho is one of some fortunate Korean men who have a wealthy father and good bank credit from where he can gain financial resources. But for many of those who don't have them, courtship and marriage feel increasingly distant.

According to a survey released in July by the state-run Korea Investment & Securities, 35.6 percent of 1,000 respondents aged from 19 to 39 said that they "have given up" on pursuing courtship, marriage and the idea of having children.

Another 26.9 percent said they had given up on one or two of these life stages.

The tough job market and difficulties associated with buying a house are considered the main reasons for the trend.

Many leave college with large debts. But the unemployment rate for young people aged between 15 and 29 here this year is the highest in 15 years at 11.1 percent, according to Statistics Korea. Among those employed, half struggle with low-paying, precarious jobs.

Moreover the cost of a wedding remains consistently high. Together, couples usually spend over 100 million won on a wedding ceremony, according to a survey of 1,000 people by the state-run Korea Consumer Agency in 2013. This amount is before any money is put aside for housing costs for the newlyweds.

As a result, the number of single men continues to increase. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, there were 113,499 single men in 1990 in the age bracket of 30 to 49. Between 1990 and 2010, this number increased by 440 percent to 496,344.

So, an increasing number of people in their 20s and 30s live with their parents with no prospects of moving out.

According to the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training, more than a half of 17,376 people who graduated from college from 2010 to 2011 said they live with their parents.

Experts say the trend of "no dating and no marriage" bodes ill for the future of Korea, which is already struggling with a low birthrate of 1.3 per household; many say that this is a big concern in Korea's rapidly aging society in the long run, shrinking the workforce, eroding economic growth and increasing the burden on the nation's social welfare system.