• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.75-101
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• 2010

One of the reasons for low fertility rate in Korea is related to the delayed marriage among the population belong to marriage cohorts. The major goal of this study is to analyze how the economic resources such as level of education, whether employed or not, and occupation have affected one's marriage opportunity and how it is differed by gender. Meanwhile, the changes in the influence of economic resources and the changes in the marriage norms were also studied by analyzing 2% Census data in 1995, 2000 and 2005. Total number of 1.1 million men and women in their ages between 20 to 44 are included in data and binary-logistic analysis is used for statistical research. This study supports a traditional hypothesis that the influence of economic resources on probability of marriage is different by gender. More important academic contribution of this study is the quality of economic resources is becoming more important for men since Asian economic crisis and that the negative effect of it on women is declining since 2000. It is analyzed that the effect of marriage norm has recently decreased on the part of women. These findings suggest that there is a tendency of polarization of marriage market in Korea affected by economic polarization since Asian economic crisis.