K-drama vs Reality: Why South Koreans love fantasy romance but remain single and childless

I'm so how do Korean men differ from men from where you're from they are a lot more chivalrous than American men on the First Dates it's very much in the culture here that they should pay for everything I wouldn't say that it was like a K drama that I I don't think any guy was like going to throw his jacket over puddle and like carry me over there something South Korea is one of the world's leading exporters of fantasy romances I have met girls that were really into the K-pop yeah and the romance stories made them think that when they came to Korea it was actually going to be like that so how closely do K dramas reflect [Music] reality [Music] for the number of marriages in South Korea slumped to Historic lows in 2022 and it has the lowest total fertility rates in the world why does a nation that excels in creating fantasy romances struggle with real life love connections there is a lot of romantic stories described by Korean t or Korean films or others but in real world uh they find that it will not be achieved so that might be the reason why they might not want to get married with uh your their partner in the real world and the other thing is although there are a lot of love stories described in Korean TV series is actually it l mostly between like rich man and the common girl in the TV series economic difficulty might not really matter much but in real world economic difficulty is the actual barrier for them to think about getting Mar [Music] yeah [Music] in contrast cohabitation is trending across Asia from a 2022 Korea Social Survey 7even out of 10 South Koreans prefer cohabiting over marriage there was even a reality show made about it living together without marriage ran for 20 episodes what why do you think we're seeing this trend of more young couples choosing to cohabit for [Music] one of the show's co-habiting couples is sonho and Sami they're both 34 years old and have been living together for 2 [Music] years so what were some of the reactions you got from your friends your family when they found out that you guys are cohabitating for I was wondering if maybe I could speak to one of your parents sure [Music] hello so do you hope for them to get married the issue of cohabitation divides younger and older generations and remains controversial so the government has had to walk a fine line in 2023 the South Korean government says it will push to recognize cohabiting families and extend government benefits to them we have a lot of people actually cohabitating now it's like around 3% they also need to have the right for the housings and health benefits a lot of European countries have babies outside marriage but we do not I think when we relax the Assumption allowing baby outside of marriage then we can uh maybe increase the birth rate a little bit but still there's a lot of social issues associate with that it certainly isn't a place to start a family I'm going to see one 3 4 5 6 7 8 [Music] it's not even nine [Music] steps

Channel: CNA Insider

Views: 150,823

Keywords: CNA Insider, Channel NewsAsia, People stories, Asian perspectives

Id: TcSv501vZkg

Length: 7min 8sec (428 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 26 2024