There has been a significant increase in the number of Vietnamese women who marry South Korean men, obtain South Korean citizenship, and then remarry Vietnamese men. Looking at related statistics closely, this phenomenon is even more pronounced.
According to Statistics Korea, in 2022, 792 S. Korean women married Vietnamese men, which is a 35.2% increase compared to the previous year (586 people). This increase rate is 4.7 times higher than the overall increase rate of marriages between S. Korean women and foreign men, which was 7.5% last year.
Over the past decade, the number of marriages between S. Korean women and Vietnamese men has almost tripled, from 279 cases in 2013. In contrast, the number of men with U.S., Chinese, and Canadian nationality marrying S. Korean women decreased by 21%, 47%, and 41%, respectively, during the same period.
Statistics Korea’s analysis of marriage and divorce statistics provides insight into the reason for the increase in S. Korean women marrying Vietnamese men.
Statistics Korea reports that out of the 556 S. Korean women who remarried Vietnamese men in 2022, 482 (86.7%) were naturalized S. Koreans. All 480 of these women were originally from Vietnam and had obtained Korean nationality through marriage to S. Korean men and then divorced.
In other words, most of the S. Korean women who married Vietnamese men were originally from Vietnam and had become S. Korean citizens through previous marriages to S. Korean men.
There has been a significant rise in Vietnamese women who naturalize as S. Koreans and then remarry Vietnamese men. This has raised concerns that some Vietnamese women may be seeking to marry Korean men only to obtain S. Korean nationality.
On the internet, it is common to find Korean men complaining about their Vietnamese wives who have left them and more than 300 cases were reported to a research center related to similar incidents in the last year.
An official from an international marriage brokerage firm said “There are Vietnamese women who have lovers in Vietnam but marry Korean men to gain Korean nationality and then remarry their lovers.”
“The problem persists because many Korean men view marriage with Vietnamese women as a transactional relationship and recognize the women as property,” he added.
