The Rise of One-Person Households and Their Recent Characteristics in Korea

This paper explores the rise in the proportion of one-person households which since 1960 was attributable largely to rural-to-urban migration of young people. The heavy migration of young people from rural to urban cities actually brought about the rural household division which contributed to the fall in household size, and contributed to the increase in one-person households of urban young singles, on the one hand, and the increase in one-person households of rural elderly widows, on the other. The rise in the aggregate propensity to live alone was also evident. However, it was not confirmative that growth in the propensity to live alone appears to be pervasive in recent Korean society. For instance, according to the findings in 1990, a large portion of young urban singles living alone were rural-to-urban migrants, and there was no evidence for increase in the propensity of urban-reared young singles to live alone. Although the rise in one-person households was evident and by 1990 about one out of every ten households was a one-person household, the findings on the recent characteristics of one-person households do not indicate any big change in the traditional family norms