Anchor: Four out of ten couples that have been married for less than five years have no children, and those that do are more likely than not to send their kids to daycare. This is according to new government data, which reveals new characteristics about newlywed couples in South Korea.
Our Bae Joo-yon has more. 

Report: Newlyweds in South Korea are increasingly less likely to have children, according to new government data released Thursday.

Statistics Korea unveiled a 2018 dataset on marriages less than five years old, marking one-million-52-thousand such partnerships as of last November.  

Some 423-thousand of these couples had no children, or over 40 percent of the total. This is a two-point-six percentage point increase from the previous year and the first time the figure has topped 40 percent in recorded history.

The data found that among couples married for less than five years there was an average of point-74 babies, down point-04 babies from a year ago.  

The agency found that 53 percent of dual-income newlyweds have children compared to 66 percent of single-income newlywed couples.

The data also found that homeowning newlyweds were more likely to have one or more children than those that did not own a home.

Further, newlyweds with children were more likely to send their kids to daycare than not for the first time ever. The dataset reveals that 48 percent of newlyweds with children sent their kids to daycare while 45-point-six percent cared for their children at home. 

Statistics Korea said that women’s economic activity and childbirth are deeply related, stressing that the latest data demonstrates the importance of policies that promote work-life balance.
Bae Joo-yon, KBS World Radio News.