Report says only 3 in 10 teens view marriage as essential

SEOUL, Only 3 out of 10 teenagers view marriage as essential, less than half the rate from a decade ago, a report showed Wednesday. The National Youth Policy Institute surveyed 7,718 elementary, middle and high school students nationwide from May to July and only 29.5 percent said marriage is essential. It marks less than half of the 73.2 percent who answered positively about the need for marriage in 2012. The change in perceptions was more prominent among female students, from 63.1 percent to 18.8 percent, the report showed. Only 19.8 percent of the respondents said having a child is a necessity in marriage, but 60.6 percent agreed that one could bear a child without marrying, hinting that teenagers no longer equate marriage with childbirth. In the same survey, 52 percent of teenagers said same-sex marriage should be legalized. "This survey shows that teenagers no longer hold on to traditional values," a researcher said, stressing that policies related to family and childbirth should undergo fundamenta l change. Source: Yonhap News Agency