SEOUL, September 15 (AJP) - More than one in 10 people in South Korea in their 50s have never married, with the number more than tripling over the past decade as marriage becomes increasingly less universal among middle-aged adults.
Data from the Ministry of Data and Statistics showed that 934,000 people in their 50s, or 10.9 percent of the age group’s 8.54 million population, had never married as of August. A decade earlier, the figure stood at 281,000, or 3.4 percent. Among people in their 40s, the never-married rate has also risen to 20 percent, about 1.8 times the level recorded 10 years ago.
The divide was particularly pronounced by gender. About 15 percent of men in their 50s had never married, compared with 6.9 percent of women.
Education was also associated with sharply different patterns. Among men in their 50s, the never-married rate was 19.7 percent for those with a junior-college education or less, falling to 9 percent among four-year university graduates and 5.9 percent among those with graduate-level education. For women, the pattern ran in the opposite direction: the rate rose from 5.6 percent among those with a junior-college education or less to 8.9 percent among university graduates and 13.5 percent among those with graduate degrees.
The shift is not unique to Korea. In Japan, 2020 census-based data showed that 28.3 percent of men and 17.8 percent of women were never married at around age 50, up from 20.1 percent and 10.6 percent, respectively, in 2010.
In the United States, 15.6 percent of people aged 45 to 54 had never married in 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The figures are not directly comparable because the countries use different age groups and statistical methods, but they point to a broader trend toward delayed or forgone marriage across advanced economies.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.
