Asia-Pacific

Economic downturn makes less weddings in ROK

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-03-24 15:38

SEOUL - The number of people who got married in South Korea last year has dropped from 2008, as more people delayed weddings amid the slow economy, a government report showed Wednesday.

Last year's total number of newly-weds were 310,000, dropping 5. 5 percent from 2008's 328,000, the Statistics Korea said, adding that it is the second consecutive year to decline since 2007 when 344,000 new marriages were registered.

Among those who got married last year, the average age for men was 31.6 years old, up 0.2 years from the previous year, whereas the women's average age came out to be 28.7 years old, up 0.4 years from 2008, both of which were the highest figures since the agency began the survey in 1990, the report said.

The number of multinational marriages also decreased to 33,000 from the previous year's 36,204, however, it was still 10.8 percent of the total newly-registered marriages from last year, a state that remained over 10 percent since 2004, the agency added.