Less women marry without job

By Kim Bo-eun

Office worker Lee Min-soo, 27, wishes to keep working after marriage.

“I have never thought of quitting work and staying at home, whether I get married and have children or not,” she said.

Such an idea has become widespread among young women over the past decade, as female participation in the workforce has grown significantly.

It is also well accepted ― or even welcomed ― by men, especially because of the increasing financial burdens on married couples to find places to live and raise their children.

“In many cases young men prefer to have their spouses work, so that both can contribute to household finances,” male office worker Kim Dong-hyun, 28, said.

Figures back this trend ― according to data from Statistics Korea, the number of women who marry without jobs or when they are students dropped from 169,581 in 2005 to 102,915 in 2015.

Women not working accounted for 53.9 percent of all the women getting married in 2005, but the ratio decreased to 33.9 percent in 2015. The percentage has consistently declined over the past 10 years.

“Because both women and men prefer having two incomes upon getting married, the percentage of women who marry while in the workforce is growing,” a Statistics Korea official said.

This trend is also because women are marrying when they are older than they used to be, as not many women these days get married before they complete their college studies, the official said. The average age of first-time marriages for women was 30 last year, up from 27.7 in 2005.

The female employment rate (spanning the ages of 15 to 64) also shows that more women are working. The figure for last year was 55.7 percent, up from 52.5 percent in 2005.

In particular, the employment rate of women in their late 20s and early 30s, the prime marrying years, has grown significantly over this period ― that of women in their late 20s, from 63 percent to 68.6 percent; and that of women in their early 30s, from 48.6 percent to 59.8 percent.