By Kim Young Shin

The number of Koreans who married non-Koreans, which has been decreasing for six consecutive years, rose in 2017 thanks to the Korean Wave in Southeast Asian countries.

Statistics Korea published ‘Vital Statistics of Immigrants in Korea in 2017’ on Nov. 23. According to the report, the number of marriages of immigrants to Koreans was 21,917 in 2017, which is 1 percent higher than the previous year. This took up 8.3 percent of the total number of marriages in the nation in that year.

The number of marriages between Korean and non-Koreans had been decreasing since 2011 because of the reinforcement of the regulations regarding visas and the matchmaking business but finally saw a small increase in 2017.

The marriage of Korean husbands and foreign wives took the largest share of 65 percent, Korean wives and foreign husbands, 19.6 percent and naturalized Koreans, 15.4 percent.

By nationality, 27.7 percent of the foreign or naturalized wives were from Vietnam, 25 percent from China and 4.7 percent from Thailand. Particularly, the proportion of Thai wives increased by 1.4 percentage points compared to the previous year.

As for the husbands, 10.2 percent came from China, 6.4 percent from the U.S. and 2.7 percent from Vietnam. The proportion of Chinese and Vietnam also climbed up from the previous year.

“Because of the Korean Wave, marriages between Koreans and Vietnamese or Thai have increased since 2015,” said Kim Jin the manager of the Population Census Division from Statistics Korea. “The ‘No-Visa entry policy,’ which allowed Thai people to enter Korea without visas may also have contributed to the increase in the number of the immigrants from Thailand who married Koreans.”

ysk1111@korea.kr