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Some men and women decide to spend their lives together despite knowing from the beginning that they have almost nothing in common. More and more South Korean men are finding their wives abroad, whether in Vietnam, China or Thailand. These multicultural partnerships are a response to a national crisis: South Korea's low marriage rate. Our reporters conducted this investigation from Vietnam and South Korea.
In South Korea, marriage is no longer an attractive prospect, especially for young women who now dream of independence. In 2023, only 4% of them considered marriage and children a necessity. In the last decade, the number of weddings in the country has fallen by 40%. Given this trend, many men go abroad to get married.
In the 1980s, local governments had already begun to orchestrate multicultural marriages as a response to the gender imbalance in the countryside. Today, however, the practice has become popular in large cities and is emerging as one of the solutions to repopulate South Korea.
In fact, the fall in the marriage rate is causing an alarming demographic crisis. With an average of just 0.78 children per woman, South Korea is the country with the lowest birth rate on the planet, something that threatens the very future of the country and its economic growth. Successive governments have tried for decades to reverse the trend, but without success.
In South Korea, many single men looking for a wife are turning to Vietnam, using marriage agencies in their search for a soul mate. There, many young women dream of a better life in South Korea, even if they don't speak the language and only know the country through boy bands and hit TV series.
Our reporters traveled to South Korea and Vietnam to investigate these marriages, which don't always end happily ever after.
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