By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
Living together as girlfriend and boyfriend is quite common in some parts of the world, but this wasn't the case in Korea. However, a recent survey has shown that many young people now do so.
A survey of 745 people above the age of 20 showed that 72.2 percent backed the idea. Among the supporters, 42 percent put marriage as a precondition for living together and 19.5 percent considered love as the most important factor. About 1.2 percent backed the idea without any serious thoughts over marriage or love.
The finding was made in a survey conducted by Prof. Shin Yeon-hee of Sungkyul University.
The survey showed 73.4 percent of men and 67.2 percent of women backed cohabitation.
People thought couples living together without marriage should be protected under the law as married couples who get legal protection in the case of separation or death.
The Civil Law currently protects cohabitants' rights to demand compensation or the right to divide property in the case of separation, but inheritance is not guaranteed in the case of a partner's death. About 93.8 percent said that a certain level of protection is needed.
When the survey team asked the same question to 134 former cohabitants, 83.6 percent said they need to be legally protected.
``It is a reality that more people choose cohabitation nowadays and there must be a legal system to support them as they are also taxpayers and members of society just like married people,'' Shin said.
Couple's living together is one of the fastest growing trends in society. Due to prevailing social prejudice, there is no official data on cohabitation, but many reports indicate that cohabitation has become a significant way of life in Korea.
In the past, couples who could not afford a formal wedding owing to financial difficulties lived together without legal marriage registry, but these days young people prefer cohabitation. To the Blog generation, or liberal and open generations, cohabitation is more about minimizing the risk of getting divorced, getting to know someone before legal marriage and even saving costs of dates.
In Japan, less than 3 percent of females aged between 25-29 are currently cohabiting but more than one in five have had some experience of an unmarried partnership, including cohabitation, according to Japan's National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. In India, cohabitation is generally regarded as taboo. About 2.4 million Filipinos (18 percent of the population) were cohabiting in 2004 . In Australia, 22 percent of couples were cohabiting, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.