More People Wear Thermal Underwear to Beat the Cold

More than half of Koreans wear thermal underwear. According to a nationwide survey of 19,000 adults released by Statistics Korea in September, 56.8 percent of the respondents said they wear long underwear in winter, up 8.6 percentage points from two years ago.

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The survey showed that people across all age groups are now more likely to wear it than in previous times. However, it remains more popular among older people. Some 83.8 percent of those aged over 60 wore it in 2011, but the number increased to 87.5 percent this year.

Long underwear is the least popular among those in their 20s, with two out of 10, or 21.3 percent, regularly wearing it in 2011. But this year the number increased to three in 10, or 29.9 percent.

By gender, more women (60.3 percent) favored it than men (53.1 percent), while rural residents (62 percent) showed a higher rate of usage than city dwellers (55.6 percent).