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[How Koreans See Marriage with Overseas Koreans]
(By courtesy of Duo Ltd.)
Korea’s representative match-making company DUO (CEO: Kim Hye-jung, www.duo.co.kr) and the Overseas Koreans Foundations (Chairman Lee Gwang-gyu, www.okf.or.kr) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade surveyed 525 unmarried Korean males and females last September to learn their perception about marriage with overseas Koreans.
In the survey, 87.4% of the respondents said they were “willing to marry an overseas Korean,” assuring they were open-minded about overseas marriage.
Among the reasons that they were positive about overseas marriage, 24.4% of the surveyed said they “wish to live in a new environment offering diverse cultural experiences,” expressing their admiration about life in other countries. The second most popular reason was that “residential place does not matter as long as the two people love each other (18.9%),” followed by the third answer of “overseas Koreans are more open-minded and flexible compared to Koreans residing in Korea (12.6%).”
Meanwhile in a question asking the most worrisome issue with respect to marrying an overseas Korean, 45.9% mentioned “there would be gaps in culture and custom.” The “issue of communication” was selected by 16.8%, and “unreliable information about overseas Koreans by 8.8%.
Matters that should be considered in a marriage with Korean living overseas were (multiple answers were possible): “personality” (29.5%); “economic capability” (20.0%); and “set of values” (15.2%). What was noteworthy was that “occupation” ranked only 8th (6.5%), although it is considered very significant in an ordinary marriage in Korea.
In the “preferred nation” category (multiple selections were allowed), a whopping number of respondents chose English-speaking countries in North America. The U.S. took the first place obtaining 59.2%, followed by Canada with 49.5% and Australia with 49.0%.
There were questions about marrying a Korean adopted overseas. Only 62.9% of the surveyed said they were “willing to get married to a Korean adoptee,” lower than 87.4% in the question regarding marriage with ordinary overseas Koreans. Among the answers that they felt okay about marrying a Korean adoptee were: i) no reason to hesitate because no one wanted to be adopted in the first place (30.9%); ii) they are still our blood even if they were adopted (21.2%); and iii) personality should come first regardless of whether they were adopted or not (18.2%).
On the other hand, what made them hesitate to have an overseas Korean adoptee as a spouse included: i) adoption could have negatively affect an adoptee (22.6%); adoptees are not treated equally in society (17.4%); and they would face cultural differences (14.9%).
In addition, only 58.7% said they would “willingly get married to overseas Koreans residing in other than North America such as China or Russia,” well below of 87.4% who gave positive answers for a general question about overseas marriage.
10/20
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