Korean statistics reveal a significant drop in marriages for 2014, with a rate of married couples that promises to be the lowest since 2005. The causes? Statisticians, politicians and economists point the finger at the economic recession, the stagnation of the labor market and a consequent general distrust in the future. However, research commissioned by the Ministry for the Family and Gender Equality reveals that, despite the crisis, those who still get married love to do it big.
But if young couples are struggling to find work and have little savings, who pays for these lavish wedding ceremonies? The answer is simple and bears witness to the fact that even at such a spatial and cultural distance there is very little new under the sun. To finance the day of the fateful yes are, as it was not difficult to predict, the parents.
86% of the parents of the bride and groom interviewed admitted that they felt obliged to pay in full for their children's wedding party. Only 10% of couples, on the other hand, declared that they had paid for all the expenses with their own means. It must be said that in Korea wedding ceremonies are particularly expensive and there are few who manage to escape social conditioning and opt for a more modest ceremony.
57% of those interviewed indicated the sum of 30 million won (about 28 thousand US dollars) as the ideal cost of a Korean wedding, but only 20% of couples manage to keep themselves within this limit. The most common justification for this bleeding of family coffers is that "we must not make a bad impression in front of others".
Which others would, of course, be relatives, friends and acquaintances, who, in turn, have offered, or will offer, a grand style party. From this vicious circle very few remain immune and, as Shin Sang-chul, a member of a civic activism movement says, "it is an embarrassing aspect of our country that social pressure forces us to spend exorbitantly just to be able to save the face".
