By Yoon Sojung

Multicultural couples accounted for 8.9% of all marriages in the country last year, down from 9.6% in 2024.

The Ministry of Data and Statistics on Nov. 5 released 2025 data on the country's multicultural population saying 21,399 such marriages occurred last year, down 0.2% from 21,450 in 2024. The decline was partly due to a fall in marriages involving naturalized citizens and a base effect resulting from the rise in multicultural marriages between 2023 and 2024.

By type, marital unions with foreign-born wives were the most common with 15,287 cases, followed by those with foreign-born husbands (4,036) and naturalized citizens (2,076).

Among husbands in such marriages, the largest group was those aged 45 or older with 31.8%, followed by those in their early 30s (20.5%) and late 30s (16.6%). Among wives, the largest demographic was those in their late 20s (22.9%), followed by those in their early (22.8%) and late 30s (16%).

The average age of a first multicultural marriage was 37.1 for a husband and 29.7 for a wife, the same as in 2024.

The most common nationality of a foreign-born or naturalized husband was Chinese (12.5%), followed by American (3.3%) and Japanese (2.9%). Among their female counterparts, Vietnamese were first (26.3%), followed by Chinese (15.1%) and Thai (9.2%).

The number of births in multicultural families last year reached 13,347, down 0.5% from 2024, accounting for 5.2% of the country's total, down 0.4%.

A combined 8,104 divorces among multicultural couples occurred last year, 9.2% of the country's total and up 0.4% (112 cases). The average age at the time of divorce was 50.7 for husbands, down two-tenths of a point, and 41.6 for wives, down four-tenths, with the average marriage lasting 10.2 years, down a tenth of a point.

arete@korea.kr