Daily NK: Rising Divorce Rates in North Korea

Iif there is any element of Korean society that I’d have thought indestructible even to Kim Jong Il, it’s the strength of Korean families. Korean society strongly encourages marriage, children, and family loyalty. Divorce and out-of-wedlock births are strongly discouraged. The single exception is its traditional tolerance for male promiscuity, whether by single or married men (who are nonetheless expected to keep their dalliances casual and remain with their wives and children). With that being said, South Korean society is clearly changing, and divorce rates are rising fast. But socially, North Korea is frozen in the past, right? Not so.

For obvious reasons, the Daily NK doesn’t have any statistics to support its twin contentions that divorce rates are rising, and that many of the North Korean men with the best jobs — soldiers — are having difficulty finding wives after being discharged, which is often when they’re not so young anymore.

Recall that North Korean men often serve in the Army for 10 or 12 years, and aren’t allowed to marry or have girlfriends the entire time.