» Weddings between a Korean and a foreigner

Four out of every ten South Korean farmers and fishermen married a foreign woman last year, according to a recent report.

According to the report, released by the National Statistical Office on March 27, of 8,596 male farmers and fishermen who were married last year, 3,525 - or 41 percent - found a foreign wife. This figure compares with 27.4 percent in 2004 and 35.9 percent in 2005.

More than half of new grooms in South Gyeongsang Province (52.6 percent) and North Gyeongsang Province (50.2 percent ) married a foreign woman, the report said.

In addition, nearly 70 percent of last year’s foreign wives nationwide came from Vietnam, the report showed.

However, the number of the total marriages between Korean men and foreign women last year dropped by 8 percent from a year earlier to 39,700 out of 332,800 marriages nationwide, or 11.9 percent of total marriages.

"As the government announced last year that it will soon introduce a system designed to make it easier for foreign workers to come to South Korea for work, the total number of marriages with foreigners dropped [as fake marriages for the purpose of finding work declined in frequency]," an NSO official said.

The average age gap between South Korean grooms and foreign brides was 11.5 years, 4.8 times higher than the 2.4-year average age gap among Korean couples. A total of 1,900 Korean men married Vietnamese women aged between 15 and 19, up 82.1 percent in this age group from a year earlier.

Total marriage figures for last year were up 5.2 percent from a year earlier. This year-on-year increase is one of the largest in recent years. 1996 saw a 9.1 percent increase during one of the periods when the law banning those with the same family name from being married was temporarily lifted, and a 13.9 percent increase was registered in 1980, at a high point in Korea’s population of marrying age. Last year’s exceptional increase in marriage is mostly attributable to the fact that 1996 marked the phenomenon of a "double spring," when the first day of spring falls at both the start and end of the lunar calendar cycle, which brings luck according to traditional Korean belief.

Out of every 100 first-time spouses, women were older than men in only 12.8 couples. A total of 18,300 marriages were between bachelors and women who had been married previously, and 14,100 marriages were between first-time brides and men who had been married before.

Men got married last year at an average age of 30.9 years old, 2.5 years older than figures from ten years prior. Women tied the knot at age 27.8 on average last year, up by 2.3 years over the same decade-long duration.

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