| Rotary International provided help for 22 international couples ― Korean men marrying women from Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines and China ― in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on Oct. 4, 2010. / Korea Times file |
By Eom Da-sol
Seoul had Korea's highest international divorce rate in 2016.
According to the city's March report, among 17,700 Seoul couples who divorced last year, 1,600 (9.2 percent) were international couples ― a Korean national married to a foreigner.
The divorce rate between Korean male and foreign spouse couples was 62 percent, compared with that of Korean women divorcing foreign husbands at 38 percent.
For Korean men, divorces from Chinese spouses topped the list at 59.7 percent, followed by Vietnamese wives (13.9 percent) and Japanese wives (5.3 percent). For Korean women, divorcing Chinese husbands accounted for the biggest proportion (46.7 percent), followed by Japanese husbands (21.8 percent) and American husbands (14.1 percent).
The Korean Statistics data showed that Jeju Island had the highest international marriage rate ― 9.4 percent. Seoul recorded 7.9 percent. A Jeju Island official said: “The region's comparatively high international marriage rate derives from the large foreign population and good living conditions compared to other provinces.”
An official from Seoul's Gwanak District Multicultural Family Support Center said: “If people marry their foreign or Korean spouses without understanding their background, they will soon face big obstacles such as cultural differences, different social views and language barriers.”