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“It turns out there are a lot of restrictions when you’re trying to apply for the public housing benefits program as an unmarried couple. They say that you need a wedding invitation, but it’s not like you can get married just for this…” (41-year-old male, currently cohabiting with partner)

“The man I’m currently living with drank so much that I wanted to check if it was alcoholism, and so I went to a psychologist for counseling. But they told me that they did not accept cohabiting couples.” (23-year-old female and unmarried mother)

A research report from a team led by Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs research fellow Byeon Su-jeong found that more than half of unmarried, cohabiting couples have experienced discrimination because of their cohabiting status, and that less than one in 10 are fully open about their cohabiting status due to social prejudices. Some have proposed that cohabiting be accepted as a new family structure, and that it is necessary to explore ways to support cohabitation through policy by allowing for cohabitation registration, much like marriage registration. In a survey conducted last year of 253 subjects aged 18-49 who either cohabited at some point after 2000 or are currently cohabiting with a partner, 51% said that they experienced discrimination in some form, whether through the negative prejudices of others or disapproval. 70% reported that the disapproval they experienced stemmed from perceptions of cohabiting couples as sexually promiscuous or immoral.

In addition, 45.1% of participants responded that they experienced discrimination when applying for government benefits and services in particular. The most common responses from participants were that they were “excluded from certain benefits because they had not registered as a married couple” (34.2%), or that “there were limits to how much they could take advantage of social services” (31.6%). In in-depth interviews with 14 subjects, a 34-year-old male currently cohabiting with his partner said, “At my girlfriend’s workplace there’s a welfare program for employees, but because the benefits are geared towards family units, we were ineligible because we aren’t married.”

Moreover, 88.6% believed that South Korean society generally viewed cohabiting families unfavorably, and the subjects who lived as openly cohabiting couples were just 6.3% of the total. A 32-year-old woman currently cohabiting with her partner said that “It’s inconvenient that whenever my parents say they are visiting, I have to pack up all of my boyfriend’s things and clear them away.” 48.5% of those who had not fully revealed their cohabiting status responded that they were motivated by fear that “others would view them disapprovingly or with prejudice.”

The disapproving attitudes towards cohabiting families was also evident in a survey of the general perception of the South Korean public that was included in the paper (conducted in August 2016, with 1,013 subjects aged 18-64). While 64.4% approved of cohabiting when accompanied by the understanding of eventual marriage, only 53.2% endorsed cohabitation where there was no intent to marry. 69.3% disagreed with the statement that “you should be allowed to have children even when you are not married.” 56.9% of all participants believed that the support and benefits for cohabiting couples should be less than that of benefits for married couples.

According to the research paper, childbirth or childrearing is highly uncommon in cohabiting families. Only 6.7% of those who had cohabited had also birthed or raised children. And only 4.7 % of unmarried respondents said that they had plans to have children while cohabiting. In reality, South Korea’s rate of childbirth outside of marriage is 1.9 %, last in the OECD, and far below the average of 40.5% (as of 2014).

This particular research report is significant as a paper published by a national policy institution amid a dearth of statistical research or surveys of unmarried cohabiting families in South Korea. Researcher Byeon Su-jeong, said “It’s important that prejudices against cohabiting families are lessened and that society becomes more accommodating towards accepting cohabitation as a legitimate family structure.” Byeon also proposed that “Cohabiting couples should be able to register as such, and that policymakers actively review schemes that enable cohabiting families that fulfill certain requirements to qualify for benefits such as proxy consent for surgery in emergencies, registration as a dependent for health insurance, and housing aid.”

In the survey of subjects that had cohabited or were currently cohabiting, 72% supported the implementation of cohabitation-related policies that would enable cohabiting couples to receive a certain level of protection, similar to that of married couples. In the case of France, the “Pacte civil de solidarit?” (PACS), which was implemented in 1999, protects the rights of cohabiting couples and provides them with the same tax benefits and social protection as legally married couples. In late 2015, the South Korean government released its third basic plan for the country‘s low birthrate and aging society, and announced that it would seek improvements for reforming social and policy discrimination against unmarried cohabiting families.

By Hwangbo Yon, staff reporter

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