November 05, 2007
Koreans and Outmarriage
When I was in South Korea this summer, I traveled through the southern portion of the country. While in a small port city called Mokpo, we ate at a tiny restaurant that specialized in chicken. Not speaking fluent Korean, we had an interesting time trying to figure out the menu (there was no menu) and what kind of food to expect (the two of us were served a whole chicken). The other interesting thing was observing the table beside us. There were two couples eating together. The two men appeared older than the two women but it was clear that they were married. I would estimate the age difference was around 15-20 years. I heard the women speaking with each other and was surprised to hear them speaking Vietnamese. Then, I remembered that there is a rising number of Korean men marrying foreign women because these men, usually from rural, poor farming areas, cannot find Korean wives who are increasingly moving out of these regions. Here is a recent article on this trend.
LEGAL WIVES IN KOREA
Chosun Ilbo, October 25, 2007
Number of Foreign Wives Leaps Four-fold
The number of foreign women married to Korean men and living in Korea has quadrupled in just six years to almost 100,000, statistics show.
According to statistics presented by the Ministry of Justice to United New Democratic Party lawmaker Sun Byong-ryul, the number of foreign women living in Korea on a marriage visa or who changed their visa after marrying a Korean man more than doubled from 24,215 in 2001 to 51,920 in 2004. In August of this year the figure was 93,902.
Korea is clearly becoming a more multi-ethnic society, since in addition to the foreign wives the number of foreign residents topped one million in August. Chinese women made up the largest group of foreign wives with 54,316, followed by Vietnamese (19,705), Japanese (5,462), Filipina (4,698), Mongolian (1,945), Thai (1,673) and Cambodian (1,374). The number of Russians and Americans who married Korean men were 923 and 550, respectively.
While the number of international marriages is growing, the number of divorces is also on the rise. Divorce suits among international couples in Korea grew from 363 in 2003 to 1,161 in 2005. In the first half of this year, the figure amounted to 1,264.
Lawmaker Sun said the country should develop systematic measures to help foreign women married with Korean men to adjust to life in their adopted country.
Posted by richlee at November 5, 2007 02:09 PMinteresting... kind of makes me wonder about the preferences as far as nationality. i mean, you know how in the u.s., the stereotypes of asian women lead men to desire them as docile, subservient... i wonder how women from these other countries are perceived in korea.
Posted by: RobynT at November 17, 2007 11:31 AM