More Older People Supportive of Late-Life Divorce

Published on 2019/06/30 | Source

A quarter of older people in their 50s and 60s consider divorce perfectly acceptable as a kind of "graduation from marriage" or "sotsukon" in Japanese, a poll suggests.

This trend is naturally stronger in large cities and among high-income earners, but also more pronounced among women than men.

In the poll of 2,022 people aged between 50 and 69 by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, 39.9 percent of respondents said late-life divorce is an acceptable option while 1.3 percent consider it a good idea.

Some 22.4 percent still ticked "absolutely unacceptable" and 27.3 percent "unacceptable". Some 40.3 percent considered it acceptable depending on the situation.

More men, older people, low-income earners and unemployed people were against late-life divorce. More women (48.2 percent) than men (32.3 percent) considered it acceptable.