Nearly 194,000 South Koreans got married last year, the first increase in marriages in that country in more than a decade.
Data released Tuesday by the national statistics office showed 193,657 couples exchanged vows in 2023, up 1% from the year before. An official with the statistics office attributed the increase in couples who had delayed marriage due to social restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The data also shows that marriages between South Koreans and foreign nationals surged about 20,000 last year, an increase of 18.3%.
Marriage rates in South Korea have steadily plummeted over the last three decades, from more than 400,000 in 1996 to below 200,000 in 2021. The decline in marriage corresponds to South Korea’s falling birth rate, the lowest in the world. The number of children born in South Korea fell from just under 400,00 in 2017, to below 300,000 in 2020 and an all-time low of 229,970 in 2023.
Marriage is seen as a prerequisite for children in South Korea, where out-of-wedlock births are a rarity.
