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More than 3.09 million Korean women live alone, with growing numbers engaged in economic activities, government statistics showed Wednesday.

According to Statistics Korea, one-woman households acｃounted for 50.3 percent of the total 6.14 million single-person households this year.

The statistics agency expects the number to continue to rise to reach 3.23 million by 2025 and 3.65 million by 2035.

Overall, the total number of women in South Korea stood at 25.83 million this year, making up 49.9 percent of the ｃountry's population.

The number of first-time marriages stood at 184,000 last year, compared with 200,000 in 2018 and 206,100 in 2017.

The life expectancy of Korean women was 85.7 years, up by 1.5 years from 2012 and 6 years longer than that of men, the data showed.

The statistics showed 51.6 percent of women were employed last year, up 0.7 percentage point from a year earlier.

The female unemployment rate was 3.6 percent, down 0.1 percentage point over the cited period.

By age, women in their early 50s had the highest employment rate of 68 percent, followed by those in their late 40s with 67.4 percent and those in their early 30s with 64.6 percent. Employment ｄropped among women in their late 30s who left the workplace due to marriage, birth and child rearing, the data showed. (Yonhap)

Words in This Story

1. acｃount for something - v. to explain how or why something happened, to be the explanation for something

2. life expectancy - n. a person, animal, or plant is the length of time that they are normally likely to live

3. chile rearing - n. the raising of children; parenting