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Biz News Korea(Eng)
Vietnamese women top non-Korean wives for Korean men
- Collected
- 2017.11.17
- Distributed
- 2017.11.20
- Source
- Go Direct
According to data released by Statistics Korea on Thursday, Vietnamese women made up 27.9 percent of multicultural marriages in 2016, up 4.8 percentage points from the previous year. Chinese women followed with 26.9 percent and Filipino women with 4.3 percent.
Chinese nationals had previously topped the list, taking 38.6 percent in 2008 but gradually falling to 27.9 percent in 2016 to finally give way to Vietnamese last year. Statistics Korea attributed this to the reduced number of Chinese people of Korean descent coming to Korea and wider options for foreigners of Korean descent to become a permanent resident besides having to marry a Korean national.
Familiarity to Korean culture through access to pop culture also played a part.
Many Vietnamese are coming to Korea for study or work purposes, according to an official from Statistics Korea.
As for the nationality of foreign husbands, Chinese were still the highest at 9.9 percent, followed by Americans at 6.4 percent and Vietnamese at 2.6 percent.
The total number of multicultural marriages fell 3.4 percent on year to 21,709 in 2016. The number has been steadily declining after the government announced tougher guidelines in 2010 to control the rapid rise in illegitimate international marriages.
Multicultural marriages accounted for 7.7 percent of all marriages in Korea, up 0.3 percentage point from the previous year, according to the data.
About 65.7 percent of all cross-cultural couples are composed of Korean men and foreign women.
By Lee Yu-sup and Kim Hyo-jin
[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]