A bride yawns during a group wedding in Gapyeong, South Korea in August 2018.
Young single people in Korea feel bored every time they are asked by relatives, friends or colleagues, even strangers: `When will you get married?`, according to SCMP.
`Every time they visit me, my parents put pressure on me to get married,` a 34-year-old man living in Seoul lamented.
A 32-year-old freelance woman also found herself in a similar situation.
Despite the media and pressure from society, more and more young Koreans choose a single life and refuse to get married.
According to a survey released by the Korean Institute of Health and Social Affairs in early January, as of 2012, less than 40% of Korean adults aged 22 to 44 participating in the survey said
In 2015, 90% of South Korean men and 77% of women aged 25 to 29 were unmarried, according to a report published in the Korea Herald.
The birth rate in South Korea is among the lowest in the world, plummeting to only 0.95 at the end of 2018, meaning that for every 100 Korean women, only 95 babies are born.
As a result, Korea’s population is increasingly aging.
Getting married and having children seems to be a fear for young people in a country where the unemployment rate is at a record level in the past 17 years and the average annual salary is less than half of the average salary.
According to a 2013 survey, couples about to get married in Korea have to spend an average of 90,000 USD to organize a traditional wedding ceremony including renting a party venue, buying in-law gifts and many other expenses.
An Australian bride who recently married a Korean man described the wedding as an opportunity for families to `trade assets`, negotiate prices and demonstrate power.
Korean society values careers and degrees over relationships, which is one of the reasons why more and more young people are afraid of getting married.
The government is naturally aware of this problem.
In July 2018, South Korea passed a bill extending maternity leave up to two years and allowing fathers to receive 80% of their salary, up to a maximum of 1,338 USD per month, when staying at home to take care of their newborn children.
Two young men sitting on the banks of the Han River, Seoul, Korea.
However, according to experts, the above measures are only temporary solutions.
In addition, in a patriarchal and conservative society like Korea, women realize that married life causes them to lose more than they gain.
Shin Gi-wook, a professor of Korean origin researching sociology at Stanford University in the US, commented that women find it difficult to manage both maintaining a job and meeting society’s expectations.
According to social science researcher Michael Hurt, Korea needs to change its ideology of respecting men and strongly reforming policies that have benefited men but disadvantage women for so long, otherwise
`Every time a woman is pushed out of her job just because she got married, there will be others who take that as an example and don’t want to get married. If Koreans want to have children, they
