Personal Bankruptcies Soar 10-Fold Over 3 Years
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
The number of personal bankruptcy cases has been rising rapidly.
According to the Supreme Court, the number of people who filed for bankruptcy reached 150,000 last year, a 10-fold increase in three years.
The government introduced the personal bankruptcy system in 2004 to help rescue credit defaulters. Applicants can have their debts written off under court approval.
Experts cited a growing number of private loan agencies as one of reasons for the increasing bankruptcy cases. They say the agencies are aggressively encouraging people to take loans and that the interest rates are unreasonably high. Currently, there are some 18,000 loan agencies in the nation.
Meanwhile, the court found that divorce cases have continued to decrease over the past three years. The number of divorcing couples totaled 124,225 in 2007, down 11.2 percent from 139,876 in 2004.
The court said, however, that the number of divorces seemed to have decreased due to the decreasing number of marriages and the adoption of the ``cooling-off period’’ system in which couples take a certain period to reconsider their divorce decisions.
According to the report, 50 percent of divorced couples last year decided to break up because of incompatible personalities. Couples who lived together less than four years took up 27 percent of divorces and couples without a child, 42 percent.