The Policy Research for the Improvement of Excessive Marriage Expense in South Korea

Excessive marriage-related expenses have become a serious social problem in South Korea. This has led to marriage delay, a low birthrate, the acceleration of an aging society, decreased national economic growth, and employment problems, among others. In South Korea, the young unmarried men and women cannot adequately prepare to shoulder the excessive expenses related to getting married in the future, as well as the high cost of purchasing a house. In fact, almost all of them are being supported by their parents in their marriage preparations or have secured a loan for such purposes. Small weddings and desirable consumption are thus aggressively being promoted for the prevention of excessive marriage-related expenses in South Korea. The reality, however, is very different. In this study, 1,000 persons (500 men, 500 women) in Seoul, South Korea with less than 5 years of marriage were surveyed for the analysis of excessive marriage-related expenses. The analysis results show that marriage expense support has long-term reciprocity and is statistically significant. The economic support beneficiary model is statistically significant both among the men and the women for childcare, housework, and economic support provision. The economic support provision model, on the other hand, is statistically significant among both the men and the women in terms of housework support. This paper discusses and presents the policy direction for addressing the problem of excessive marriage-related expenses in South Korea. It is believed that the policy direction proposed by this study will also have global implications and will become useful for addressing the problem of excessive marriage-related expenses through research result sharing.