Over 60% of youth from muilticultural families attend college, a survey says. Shown are two students from such families at Korea Polytechnic Dasom High School in Jecheon, Chungcheongbuk-do Province, posing for a photo while showing their national technical certifications. (Ministry of Employment and Labor)

By Jeon Misun 

Over 60% of multicultural youth attended college last year. with their families seeing higher incomes and living in Korea for a longer time.

This shows how such households are growingly integrated into Korean society.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family on July 31 said this in its 2024 National Multicultural Family Fact-finding Survey.

Polling 16,014 multicultural families, the study found that the net enrollment rate of children from multicultural families at institutions of higher education such as university was 61.9%, a huge leap from 40.5% in 2021.

The gap in such rates among the general population thus plummeted from 31 percentage points in 2021 to 13 last year.

The higher figure was attributed to the phenomenon of multicultural children born in the early to mid-2000s who began to fully feel the effects of government policy that expanded support for them.

The incomes of multicultural families also made big strides, with 65.8% of them earning an average monthly income of KRW 3 million won or more, up from 50.8% in 2021. And for the first time since such statistics were compiled, the income bracket of KRW 3 million to 4 million won was confirmed as the highest.

Multicultural families were also found to reside longer in the country, with 52.6% of marriage immigrants or naturalized citizens living in Korea for 15 years or more, up from 39.9% in 2021.