Mixed Marriages Drop Sharply

Mixed marriages have declined in Korea as the coronavirus pandemic kept mail-order brides away, but cross-cultural couples are still more likely to have children than all-Korean ones.

According to Statistics Korea on Tuesday, mixed marriages plummeted 34.6 percent on-year to 16,177 last year, and that led to a record low childbirth in cross-cultural families with 16,421 children born, down 8.5 percent over the same period.

But the proportion of mixed-race children among total childbirths increased 0.1 percentage point to reach six percent for the first time last year. That is because total childbirths dropped 10 percent to 272,999 compared to only 8.5 percent in cross-cultural childbirths.