In brief
Kyodo News reports that multicultural marriages comprised 8.9% of all unions in South Korea in 2025, totaling 21,399 marriages—a drop of 0.2% from the previous year. The proportion of divorces among these couples increased by 1.4%, and births in multicultural families fell 0.5% to 13,347. Vietnamese women lead the foreign-spouse segment at 25.3%.
Kyodo News said that in 2025, **multicultural marriages** made up 8.9 percent of all marriages in South Korea, a small decline from 2024. The country recorded 21,399 such unions, down 0.2 percent, or 51, from 21,450 in 2024, according to data released by the Ministry of Data and Statistics.
Marriages in which a foreign wife was involved represented 71.4 percent of the total, while 18.9 percent involved foreign husbands and 9.7 percent involved naturalized citizens. In 75.2 percent of multicultural marriages, the husband was older than the wife, and in 36.1 percent of all couples the husband was at least 10 years older.
**Vietnamese wives** accounted for the largest share of foreign spouses at 25.3 percent, followed by **Chinese wives** at 15.1 percent and **Thai wives** at 9.2 percent. Foreign husbands from the United States, China and Vietnam made up 6.8 percent, 5.6 percent and 3.6 percent of the figure, respectively.
Divorces among multicultural couples rose 1.4 percent year over year, reaching 8,104 in 2025. This change reflects a growing trend of separation in mixed‑national households.
The number of babies born to multicultural families fell 0.5 percent from the previous year, totaling 13,347 births in 2025. Lower birth rates are a concern for the future demographic balance of these families.
