Government data showed today, the number of international marriages between a South Korean national and a foreigner inched up last year, ending six consecutive years of decline.
According to the data by Statistics Korea, there were 21,709 international marriages last year, up 1 percent, or 208, from a year earlier.
Those marriages accounted for 8.3 percent of the country’s total marriages of 264,455 in the same year, up from 7.7 percent tallied in the previous year.
The number of cross-cultural marriages had been on a steady decline since peaking at 35,098 in 2011 as the South Korean government announced a set of measures to tighten fast-rising international marriages in 2010.
