One in Five Newlywed Couples Last Year Consisted of an Older Woman and a Younger Man

Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Releases "The Lives of Men and Women" Data
Record-High Number of Men Receive Parental Leave Benefits

One out of every five newlywed couples last year consisted of an older woman and a younger man, meaning that in these couples, the woman is older than the man.

On September 3, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family released materials titled "The Lives of Men and Women in Statistics 2026," containing these findings. According to the data, the total number of first marriages declined from 254,630 cases in 2010 to 238,275 in 2015, 166,900 in 2020, and 148,288 in 2022. However, the number started to rise again, reaching 149,649 in 2023, 178,734 in 2024, and 198,603 last year.

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During this period, the age gap between married couples also changed. The proportion of couples where the husband is older than the wife decreased from 69.1% to 63.0%. In contrast, the proportion of couples of the same age increased from 16.0% to 16.7%, and couples where the wife is older rose from 14.9% to 20.2%.

Among households with a spouse, the proportion of dual-income households was 48.6%, up by 0.6 percentage points from the previous year. Among people in their 20s and 30s, the employment rate was 74.5% for men and 68.2% for women. Compared to 2015, the employment rate for men dropped by 1.2 percentage points, while the rate for women increased by 10.2 percentage points. Over the same period, the labor force participation rate for men decreased by 1.4 percentage points from 74.1% to 72.7%, whereas for women, it increased by 5.0 percentage points from 51.9% to 56.9%, narrowing the gender gap.

The proportion of women who experienced career interruptions stood at 14.9%, down by 1.0 percentage point from a year earlier. However, among women with children aged six years or younger, the rate was 31.7%—24.9 percentage points higher than for women without children (6.8%)—indicating that childcare remains a major factor in women's career discontinuity.

Men's participation in childcare has also increased. Last year, 184,329 people received parental leave benefits, more than double the number from 10 years earlier. The proportion of male recipients during this period increased from 5.6% to a record high of 36.5%. The number of people receiving reduced working hour benefits during the childcare period was 39,400, with 34,465 women and 4,935 men. The flexible work arrangement utilization rate was 18.5% for men and 13.9% for women. Compared to 2015, this rate rose by 13.8 percentage points for men and 9.3 percentage points for women.

In the 9th nationwide local elections held in June this year, women made up 34.9% of the elected local council members. Last year, women accounted for 14.3% of high-ranking national public officials and 28.2% of those at grade four or above. Both figures increased by 1.4 percentage points and 1.9 percentage points, respectively, compared to a year earlier. In the private sector as well, the proportion of female executives rose from 13.4% to 13.8%—up 0.4 percentage points—in companies with more than 1,000 regular employees, and from 10.9% to 12.4%—an increase of 1.5 percentage points—in companies with fewer than 1,000 employees.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.