• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.1-6
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• 2014

This paper examines the relationship between education and marriage in South Korea, based on a 2 percent data of the 2000 census. The result found strong educational homogamy and wife-hypergamy over the five age cohort, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, and 61-70. For the primary, junior secondary, upper secondary and tertiary educational levels, the chance of marrying within the same educational level was stronger for primary and tertiary education. In terms of trends, the educational homogamy increased across the four cohorts. We note that while upward marriage was stronger for women (hypergamy), it decreased over time.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.33-62
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• 2005

This study aims to explain the current upheaval in marriage that many young Korean men and women postpone or deny their marriage. In order to explain the delayed marriage, we need to understand the taste by which men and women choose their partners, the opportunity by which they find their ideational half in reality, and the context in which these values and opportunities of marriages intersect. This study examines the way in which the value and opportunities of marriage among Korean men and women have intersected differently in the changing economic conditions. Using KLIPS(Korea Labor Income Panel Survey, 1998-2002), differential effects of education and occupational status on marital time according to marriage cohort and gender are analyzed. Results find that the opportunity of marriage among men turns out to have been stratified significantly according to their educational achievement and labor status since the 1990s. For women, education and economic activities are likely to influence marriage decision in a discordant way; during the period of 1990-997, highly educated women are more likely than their counterparts to be married earlier while there is no significant difference according to economic activities. This implies that status homogamy has been intensified since the 1990s and many women with high motivation for social status are able to achieve a vicarious social status through marriage in a prosperous economy. For women married after 1998, however, the educational effect is insignificant but economic activity contributes to delaying marriage. This suggests that under the economic restructuring since the late 1990s, the constraint of opportunities finding decent jobs particularly for men results in the contingent change in women's perception about family roles and economic activities by reducing their expectation to achieve a vicarious status through marriage, but increasing their motive for their own economic activities.