Half of Single Households Are Fathers Living Alone

Some 60 percent of the one-person households in Korea are actually married people with children, according to Statistics Korea on Tuesday, and four in 10 are over 50. This is due to a growing number of fathers living apart from their wives and children because they work somewhere else and senior citizens living alone after their spouses die.

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There are 5.28 million one-person households in Korea, 169,000 more than last year, accounting for a whopping 27.8 percent of total households as of 2016. But 59.1 percent or 3.12 million are in fact married people.

Statistics Korea said the reason seems to be that families live apart because one or the other partner has to live somewhere else to work.

Some 2.91 million single householders are employed, 66,000 more than in 2015. Some 22.6 percent are in their 30s, 22.2 percent over 60 and 19.4 percent in their 50s.

A Statistics Korea staffer said, "As Korea ages, the average age of one-person households also increased. It looks like there is a considerable number of elderly people who live alone after the death of their spouses and are getting jobs to make ends meet".

The proportion of double-income couples also rose to 5.33 million households, accounting for 44.9 percent of total households compared to 43.9 percent in 2015. People in their 50s accounted for the highest proportion of double-income couples at 1.78 million households, followed couples in their 40s.