Bridal Pregnancy and Women’s Educational Attainment in South Korea

Jinwoo Lee, University of Texas at Austin
Yujin Kim, University of Texas at Austin

We examine relatively less explored areas of Korean marriage and family life by focusing on the change of bridal pregnancy (marriage preceded by pregnancy). We first demonstrate the trend of bridal pregnancy, its’ association with education level, and finally present our speculations on possible causes of recent drop of bridal pregnancy by using recent four waves of pooled data on 25,886 ever married women in South Korea. We utilize a comparative perspective that allows us to compare with similar cases in other countries (i.e., United States and Japan) and found that bridal pregnancy in South Korea displays somewhat unique paths: (a) not concentrated among lower education like Japan but rather occurred all across education levels; (b) drops significantly in the 2000s. We discuss possible reasons that might explain the observed discrepancies or features based on the unique cultural and socio-economic context of South Korea.