• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.93-111
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• 2009

This study aims to find out changes of marital status and average marital life expectancy in Korea according to educational attainment. The study produces Korean marriage life table to accomplish the goal of study by introducing Wolfbein-Wool style working life table. Specific data utilized in this study are collected from the Population & Housing Census 2005 and Death Census 2005. Educational attainment is divided into four categories to accommodate to this study: elementary school course and lower, middle school course, high school course, college course and higher. Marriage rate, divorce rate, widowhood rate and death rate according to educational attainment are used as basicdata to analyze marital life expectancy. The results of this study are as follows: 1. As subjects age is younger, the average marital life expectancy of the highly educated tends to be higher. The disparity of average marital life expectancy according to educational attainment is apt to become narrow as subjects age is older. However, the gap between people who graduated from middle school and high school in older age group does not distinctive. 2. Males marital life expectancy is higher than females controlling for their educational attainment. 3. Males live with their wife for most of their lives but females live alone more than 10 years in every single educational categories. Based on the above, this study concludes that the average marital life expectancy is differentiated among age and sex according to educational attainment. Marital rate tends to be higher as educational level is higher. Divorce rate is lower in the highlyeducated group as their age is younger but this is apt to reverse as age is older. Furthermore, bereavement rate shows division according to educational attainmentsince one tends to marry other who has similar level of education with him or her. Therefore, educational attainment acts as an significant factor in Korean average life expectancy.