Seoul (VNA) - The number of international marriages between a citizen ofthe Republic of Korea (RoK) and a foreigner in 2018 rose 8.5 percent from ayear earlier to 23,773, with Vietnamese brides taking the lion’s share.
International marriages accounted for 9.2percent of total marriages of 258,000 in the RoK in 2018, up 0.9 percentagainst the previous year, according to Statistics Korea.
Out of the total, couples made up of a Korean man and a foreign woman accountedfor 67 percent last year, followed by foreign male-Korean female pairs with19.6 percent and couples from naturalised Koreans with 14.6 percent.
Vietnamese brides took the lion’s share of all internationalmarriages at 30 percent in 2018. Chinese wives came in second with 21.6 percent, followed by Thaiat 6.6 percent.
In comparison, Chinese men accountedfor 9.4 percent of foreign males who got married with Korean women, followed byAmericans at 6.2 percent and Vietnamese at 2.5 percent./.