Korea Quick Poll - Would you be willing to getting married to foreigner?

From Korea - Here is the result of the quick poll we conducted on July 24th 2010. The topic was 'International marriage'

Total respondents: 1765

Question: Would you be willing to getting married to foreigner?(single answer)

Answers: Yes - 45.67%  No - 54.33%

The ratio of 'No' is slightly higher. most of panels who answered 'No' said that "It is hard to understand different culture, language, and value system." On the other hand, most of the panels who answered 'Yes' said "With their beloved person, cultural difference doesn't matter."



Korea is a homogeneous society with absolute majority of the population of Korean ethnicity for a long time.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_Korea#Ethnic_groups) It is said that this might be a reason why Koreans tend to be conservative about accepting different cultures.

According to National Statistics Office, however, the ratio of international marriage increased dramatically from Y2000. International marriage is now accounted for about 10 percent of the total number of marriages in Y2009.

This is considerably related to rapid social changes in Korea. As one back ground of this phenomenon, economic development which started from 90s is pointed. It enables more Korean women to reach high education level, and to participate in the workplace. It delays woman's marriage and have some women set a higher standard towards marriage. As a result, it is reported that it is hard to get married domestically  and males start to see the overseas.

This is an interesting figure that might be an evidence of Korean society opens up themselves to other cultures more and more recently. Now you can see many foreigners on the streets in Seoul for business, travel, residence, etc. As a part of the global society, Korea has been changed to the society that respects the value of 'diversity'.