1 in 10 Newlywed Couples Give up Dual Income to Raise Kids

One in 10 young couples decide that one partner, usually the woman, will give up her job to raise children.

Statistics Korea said Tuesday that a study of 235,000 couples who married in 2014 showed that 49.7 percent earned dual incomes at the time, but that fell to 44.4 percent a year later.

Among those who have their first child in the first year of their marriage, the proportion of double-income couples fell from 50.8 percent in the year of marriage to 41.2 percent the year after that, meaning that one partner probably gave up his or her job.

Data show that young wives tend to quit their job if it was low-paid work. Some 84.8 percent of newlywed women who quit their jobs in their first year of marriage earned less than W30 million a year (US$1=W1,153).

A Statistics Korea official said, "It seems women whose wages are low tend not to continue their careers once they get married."