© Archyde.com. “This is why I will have a child”… The proportion of newlyweds who own a home has declined for 3 consecutive years [정의진의 경제현미경]
A view of apartments in Gangnam, Seoul last October. Photo = Yonhap News Last year, the proportion of first-married newlyweds who owned a house fell to the lowest level since 2015, when related statistics began to be compiled. In particular, since 2018, when house prices began to rise in earnest, they have declined for three consecutive years. As newlyweds without a home have a 10 percentage point lower probability of having children than newlyweds who own a home, it is pointed out that the skyrocketing real estate prices caused by the Moon Jae-in administration have exacerbated the problem of extremely low birth rates.
According to the data from the 2021 Newlyweds Statistics released by the National Statistical Office on the 12th, the proportion of newlyweds who own a house among first-married newlyweds last year was 42.0%, down 0.1 percentage point from the previous year. The share of home ownership by first-married newlyweds, which began to be counted in 2015, rose for three consecutive years from 42.6% in 2015 to 43.8% in 2018. However, after that, it fell to 42.9% in 2019 and 42.1% in 2020, and then decreased to 42.0% last year for three years. Provided by the National Statistical Office Newlyweds, as counted by the National Statistical Office, refer to couples whose marriage has been registered for less than five years as of November 1 of each year. Newlyweds are included in the statistics of newlyweds only if the couple is maintaining a legally married relationship and at least one of them is residing in Korea.
The proportion of first-married newlyweds owning a home increased as time passed after marriage. Only 30.7% of first-married newlyweds owned houses in the first year, but 35.7% in the second year, 41.1% in the third year, 47.2% in the fourth year, and 51.9% in the fifth year. About half of newlyweds own their own home after five years of marriage. According to the National Statistical Office, whether or not you own a house has a direct impact on your child planning. As of November 1 last year, among first-married newlyweds who own a house, the proportion of couples with children was 59.9%, 9.8% higher than newlyweds without a home (50.1%). In terms of the number of children, the average number of children of first-time married couples owning a house was 0.73, 0.13 more than newlyweds without a home (0.60).
The number of children was also found to be related to whether newlyweds had dual income. Among first-married newlyweds, the share of dual-income couples with children was 49.6%, 10.9 percentage points lower than that of single-income couples (60.5%). The average number of children for first-married, dual-income newlyweds was 0.59, 0.15 less than single-income couples (0.74).
The share of dual-income couples among first-married newlyweds rose 2.9 percentage points from the previous year to 54.9%. The share of working couples is steadily increasing. The proportion of couples with children among all first-married newlyweds provided by the National Statistical Office was 54.2% last year, down 1.3 percentage points from the previous year. The average number of children of first-time newlyweds was 0.66, a decrease of 0.02 over the same period.
Last year, the average annual income (employment and business income) of first-time newlyweds was 64 million won. It is 4.11 million won (6.9%) higher than 59.89 million won in 2020. However, it was found that their loans increased at a faster rate than their income. The median loan balance for first-time newlyweds increased by 20.42 million won (15.4%) from 132.58 million won in 2020 to 153 million won last year. Provided by the National Statistical Office, the total number of newlyweds including remarriages last year was 1,101,455, a decrease of 82,295 pairs (7.0%) from 1,183,750 pairs in 2020, a year ago. The share of first-time newlyweds was 79.1 percent, down 0.1 percentage point from the previous year. The proportion of remarried newlyweds was 20.6%.
Reporter Chung Eui-jin justjin@hankyung.com
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