Culture Of Living Together Before Marriage (동거) In Korea!

In this article we will share to you the culture of living together before marriage in south korea. There’s some logical reason of why recently there are more south koreans willing to cohabitate with their partners before marriage. Let’s dive right into this culture.

Donggeo (동거) Culture

In Korea, someone who are living together with their partner before marriage is called Donggeo (동거).

Based on the survey of thousands men and women range 20 – 44 taken by Korea Institute of Health and Social Affairs in 2019, there are more than 51% women and 77% men willing to live together with their partner before marriage.

This percentage spike sharply compare to the last survey taken in 2015. However, half of the korean women that are willing to live with their partner before marriage are actually oppose the idea of living together without any plan of a future marriage.

This mean that most of the women that are agreed to living together with their partner are those who are having a conviction that they will getting married with their partner in some point in the future.

However, as most people guessed, most (more than half) percentage of men are actually willing to live together with their couple or partner without any intention of future marriage.

This result is quiet logical as we know women are getting more prejudice and challenge by people compare to men when it comes to living together before marriage.

Reasons To Live Together Before Marriage

While some of you might have a negative thought when it comes to live together before marriage, korean are actually having some serious logical reason of why they are willing to do this. Here’s some of the reason of why they are willing to live together before get married.

High Cost of living

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In Korea, the cost for living, renting a house or apartment is quiet high that it’s really helpful to share your burden with your partner by living together in a single apartment.

Especially for youth, the increasing number of rent price is super hard and difficult as they’re getting hard to get a stable long term job for their life.

More than that, even if the couple are in serious relationship, the cost for prepare of their wedding is really expensive that they don’t even afford to do it.

Thus more and more people are willing to live together to save some cash in order to prepare their wedding ceremony or just to reduce the economic pressure on their life.

Loneliness

The competition in korean culture is no joke, in which makes youth getting even more stressful as they must compete and behave in the workplace.

Thus, by living with the one they really love will help them reduce the loneliness, depression and hardship as they have a partner that can lift each other up.

More than that, sex is also one thing that help reduce stress and give some endorphins to their system. However, there are still some people that are looking at this culture as simple the way of solving their sexual desire.

Prevent Divorce

Many Koreans felt ashame when it comes to divorce, as it involves not just themselves, but also their family, especially after they spent lots of money for wedding ceremony and houses.

Thus, living together in order to help reduce and prevent future divorce seems logical to many korean thought.

Rather then spent lots of money in the first place and find out that they’re incompatible, they rather living together for some time to see whether they can adapt to one another.

Profession

While the other reasons seems acceptable, this reason is also quiet logical, even if it might felt like it is unacceptable. In today society, it’s quiet hard for youth to get a job, it’s the fact.

Thus, some youth choose to live with the ‘well off’ men or women. While it’s quiet common in every country when we see a young women living with an old rich guy, it’s also quiet common to see a middle age ‘well off’ women living with a young guy, in Korean it’s called “애완남” or pet man.

Many middle aged single korean women are wealthy and afford to pay for living expenses of two people. They’re also willing to pay the unemployed partner monthly salary in order to do housechores while they’re doing their job / business.

Culture of Living Together Before Marriage

Here’s some reasons we can share to you about why korean choose to live together before marraige. Let us know what you think about this culture and how about your country culture?

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