The figure, released Nov. 5 by the Ministry of Data and Statistics, formerly Statistics Korea, is the highest since the government began compiling the statistics in 2008, Korea JoongAng Daily reported.

A total of 21,399 multicultural marriages, those involving a foreign or naturalized spouse, were registered in 2025, down 0.2% and the first decline in four years. With total marriages went up 8.1% to 240,326, the multicultural share accounts for nearly nine in every 100 marriages.

Unions with Vietnamese women fell 5.8% to 5,409, with Chinese women dropped 5.2% to 3,224, and those with Thai women 8.8% to 1,960.

The popularity of Korean entertainment in Japan, helped by streaming platforms, is believed to be a major factor behind the rise. "The influence of Korean culture, including K-dramas, appears to be contributing to a continued rise in favorable attitudes toward Korea," a Data Ministry official said, as cited by the paper.

Marriages between Korean men and Japanese women have more than doubled since 2022, rising from 615 that year to 848 in 2023 and 1,188 in 2024, Seoul Economic Daily reported. Their share of multicultural marriages doubled over the period, from 3.5% to 7%.

A couple in hanbok, Korea’s traditional dress, in Seoul. Photo by Unsplash/Nichika Sakurai

The narrowing economic gap between the two countries has also been cited. South Korea's per capita gross national income overtook Japan's in 2023 and 2024 before slipping back below it in 2025, at $36,963 against an estimated figure in the low $38,000s for Japan, according to the Bank of Korea.

Some observers also point to gender tensions in South Korea, including the spread of derogatory terms aimed at both men and women.

In Japan, Tokyo Shimbun reported in late September that female membership at Moa Love, a Tokyo matchmaking agency that pairs Japanese women with Korean men, had doubled from a year earlier. About 40% of its Korean male members do not speak Japanese, though translation apps have eased the language barrier, the newspaper said.

One woman, a 38-year-old IT freelancer in Tokyo given the pseudonym Kana, told the newspaper that she hears "saranghae," or "I love you," every day and that the Korean men she has dated walk on the traffic side of the street. "Once you've dated a Korean man, Japanese men honestly fall short," she said.

Aya, 36, who married a Korean man in April, yet told the newspaper that not every man is as gentle as those in K-dramas, and that she chose her husband regardless of nationality.

In South Korea, births to multicultural families fell 0.5% to 13,347 in 2025, or 5.2% of all births, while marriages involving naturalized citizens dropped 9% to 2,076.

A ministry official told Korea JoongAng Daily that a fall in naturalizations in 2021 and 2022, when the Covid-19 pandemic made citizenship procedures more difficult, had reduced marriages involving naturalized citizens, which appeared to have contributed to fewer births after a time lag.

Multicultural divorces rose 1.4% to 8,104, even as divorces nationwide fell 3.3%, lifting their share of all divorces to 9.2% from 8.8%. A ministry official said the slight rise appeared to reflect the growth in multicultural marriages over the past few years.