Homeownership down among those in 50s or over

By Kim Tong-hyung

The size of the average family seems to be getting smaller, according to Statistics Korea, due to the rising number of unmarried adults and women choosing to have fewer children.

The report by the national statistics office, which focused on housing trends since 1995, also indicated homeownership dramatically declining among over-50s as retirees continue to sell their properties and convert to rent in the face of an acute squeeze in their living standards.

To Koreans, the quintessential image of a family has long been the family of four. However, official data showed that ``micro’’ families, including people living alone, childless couples and single-parent families with only one child, accounted for around half of the country’s households as of 2010.

If trends over the past 15 years continue, a sizable chunk of Korean adults in the future will not be married and likely have fewer children, an alarming thought for a country that is aging quicker than just about any other developed nation.

Over the past two decades, marriage rates have declined, while divorce rates have increased. And among the factors influencing family life, perhaps the most significant is economic.

Stagnant income, high education costs and the lack of family-friendly policies, which restricts the freedom of working women in setting a life-work balance, appear to be the main reasons women are choosing to have smaller families. They are starting their families later and increasingly sticking to a single child family, which results in a shrinking of the average family size and disables the population from replacing itself.

``It all comes down to this: Korea is becoming a harder place for people to balance work and childcare. This keeps couples from having more children and poses a threat to long-term economic growth and supporting the increasingly top-heavy population,’’ said an official from the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.

``However, Korean employers are still uninterested in helping employees raise their children and advance their careers at a same time, evidenced by the paucity of companies that provide childcare facilities for workers in their buildings.’’

Korea’s total fertility rate, or the average number of children women have during their childbearing years, was at 1.24 last year, virtually staying put from 1.23 in 2010 and continuing to represent one of the lowest figures in the world.

The average age at which women give birth to their first child rose to 30.25, up from 30.1 in 2010 when it first passed the symbolic mark of 30, as people continue putting off having a baby.

While the country’s population grew at around 9 percent between 1995 and 2010, the number of households increased by nearly 34 percent during the period, as the average size of families continued to shrink, according to the latest Statistics Korea report.

Households with two members or less accounted for 29.6 percent of entire households in 1995, but the rate spiked dramatically to 48.2 percent in 2010. People living alone accounted for nearly 24 percent of all households in 2010. Families with three or four members accounted for 52 percent of the households in 1995, but 43.8 percent in 2010.

Women accounted for 16.6 percent of household income-earners in 1995 and 25.9 percent in 2010. There were about 2.22 million single women living alone in 2010, compared to 1.92 million men.

Homeownership is on decline, measuring at 54.2 percent in 2010, after coming in at 55.6 percent in 2005. Home ownership among people between the ages 30 and 34 declined from 32.3 percent in 2005 to 29.6 percent in 2010. The rate dropped from 53.8 percent to 49.7 percent among people between 40 and 44, and 66.2 percent to 60.9 percent among people between 50 and 54.

While owning a home once symbolized financial security and prosperity, all that changed after the housing market crashed with the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008. As family budgets are squeezed on high levels of debt and low wages, a growing number of people are questioning whether home ownership is really so desirable.

As with many other countries, Korea expects to see the retiring proportion of its population balloon in the coming years. This is feared to escalate pressure on the nation’s fiscal position as retirees will collect pensions and medical benefits that must be paid by a shrinking number of taxpayers.

The government expects the proportion of over-65s to reach 14.3 percent by 2018 and 20 percent in 2026. France is expected to reach the same ratio in 39 years. For the United States and Germany, the corresponding figures stand at 21 and 37 years respectively.