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ED Broader family concepts

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Recognizing unmarried couples needs social consensus

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family is moving to recognize unmarried or cohabiting couples as a legally defined family. Korea's Civil Act limits the definition of a family to spouses, lineal blood relatives, brothers and sisters. The Framework Act on Healthy Families, which constitutes the basis of various family policies, also defines a family as the “basic social unit formed by marriage, blood relations, and adoption.” The ministry is proposing to break up this framework, as part of government moves to overhaul laws and systems to suit rapid social changes, including the concept of family.

According to statistics, the share of households composed of married couples and their unmarried adult children fell to 29.89 percent in 2019 from 37 percent in 2010, suggesting new forms of families, based on unmarried or cohabiting couples, have increased. In a 2019 survey, 60.1 percent of respondents consented to expand the legal family scope to common-law marriage, and unmarried and cohabiting couples, reflecting changing public attitudes.

Some European countries have long broadened the scope of a legal family. A case in point is France's pacte civil de solidarite (PACS), which provides cohabiting couples the same support as married couples. Such a system would also likely help to raise Korea's birthrate, which currently is the lowest in the world. The imperatives to change laws and systems related to the definition of family have been verified in more than a few ways. However, basic individual rights on residency, care and healthcare are being given within the current legal family framework, widening the gulf between reality and institutionalism. Criticism is growing over the failure of family-related laws to catch up with changes in societal perceptions.

However, the nation has a long way to go before turning the ministry's idea into reality. The drastic change in the concept of family requires a social consensus. The ministry's plan to hold a public hearing to listen to experts and ordinary citizens' views seems to be part of efforts to induce such a social agreement. The issue of changing the legal definition of family does need this and so the government should expedite the discussion and consensus process.