45% of Newlyweds Prefer 'No Children is Best'... Childless Couples Without Homes Have 0.62 Children

1.184 Million Newlywed Couples Last Year, Down 6.1%

Number of First-Birth Children Only 0.68

Couples with Houses Had 0.76 Children
Couples without Houses Had 0.62 Children

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] Last year, the number of newlywed couples decreased by about 70,000 pairs compared to the previous year. The number of first-marriage births was only 0.68, and couples who owned a house were found to have more children than those without a house. In particular, about half of the first-marriage couples were found to have no children.

According to the 2020 newlywed couple statistics released by Statistics Korea on the 9th, as of November 1 last year, there were 1,184,000 newlywed couples, a 6.1% (76,000 pairs) decrease from the previous year. This marks the fifth consecutive year of decline since the related statistics began in 2015 (1,472,000 pairs). The number of first-marriage newlywed couples was 938,000 pairs, down 60,000 pairs from 998,000 pairs the previous year.

By years of marriage, the fifth year accounted for the largest share at 21.6%, while the first year was the smallest at 18.1%. It is analyzed that the number of newlywed couples is decreasing due to the annual decline in the number of marriages.

The region where the most newlywed couples reside is Gyeonggi Province, with 29% (498,000 pairs) of the total. This is followed by Seoul at 18% (309,000 pairs), and Gyeongnam at 6.3% (107,000 pairs). In 2019, Sejong was the only area where the number of newlywed couples increased by 4.3% compared to the previous year, but last year, all 17 local governments surveyed, including Sejong, showed a decline.

The average household size of newlywed couples was 2.76 persons, down 0.06 persons. Last year, households with 2 persons (40.1%) were the most common, which differs from 2019 when households with 3 persons (38.0%) were the majority.

Among first-marriage newlywed couples, the proportion of couples without children increased by 2 percentage points to 44.5%. The proportion of couples with children decreased from 57.5% the previous year to 55.5%. The proportion of couples without children is expanding. The average number of births was 0.68, a decrease of 0.03 from 0.71.

The decline in childbirth among newlywed couples has led to a decrease in South Korea's total fertility rate (the expected number of children a woman will have in her lifetime). Last year, it recorded an all-time low of 0.84, down 0.08 from the previous year.

Couples who owned a house had an average of 0.76 children, which was 0.14 more than the 0.62 children of couples without a house. This indicates that home ownership also had a significant impact on childbirth.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.