Marriage is optional, over 60 percent of South Korean workers say
Local job portal Incruit surveyed 653 workers across the country on what their views were on marriage, and 60.2 percent said marrying was not something one necessarily has to do. The survey revealed a substantial difference between how women and men view the need to marry, as 75.3 percent of the female respondents felt tying the knot is a matter of choice, compared to 49.7 percent of male respondents who did.
While the majority of respondents said marrying is a choice, 66.6 percent of respondents said they did want to get married. Some 57.5 percent said they wanted to get married for "emotional stability," followed by 17.6 percent who said they wanted to marry to have a child.
About 39.7 percent of those who did not want to get married said they "do not feel the necessity" to do so, while 23.7 percent cited financial restraints and 17.6 percent said they did not have anyone they like enough to get married.
The survey also showed that more of the people working for larger companies thought the marriage was necessary, with 43.8 percent of those working at large conglomerates saying so. Some 40 percent of those working at middle-market enterprises and 38.7 percent of workers at small and medium-sized enterprises thought so.
South Korean law sorts businesses depending on its assets, with those having at least 10 trillion won ($6.9 billion) categorized as large conglomerates, companies with assets between 500 billion won and 5 trillion won defined as middle market enterprises, and the firms with smaller assets categorized as small and medium-sized enterprises.
A 2024 report by Statistics Korea showed that the monthly salary for employees of large conglomerates in 2022 was 5.91 million won ($4,093), over twice that of those working at small and medium-sized companies.
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