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Gov’t to conduct survey of multicultural families

By Lee Hyo-jin lhj@koreatimes.co.kr

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family will conduct a survey of multicultural households nationwide, hoping to reflect their diversifying needs in government policies better.

The ministry announced Sunday that the triennial survey will be conducted from Aug. 2 to 31 of some 32,000 multicultural households across the country, to obtain detailed data on their economic activities, family lives, childcare situations and education.

“Through this large-scale survey, we aim to analyze precisely the current status and needs of such families,” said Kim Kwon-young, a ministry official in charge of multicultural family policies.

According to data from Statistics Korea, there were 370,000 multicultural households in the country as of 2020, accounting for 1.8 percent of total households. The figure has continuously increased over the past few years, from 319,000 in 2017, to 335,000 in 2018 and 350,000 in 2019.

The number of people in multicultural families reached 1.09 million in 2020, accounting for 2.1 percent of Korea’s total population.

As a result, the government plans to come up with more tailored support measures that reflect the actual needs of such families.

“The results of the survey will be used to devise support policies for multicultural families, such as a five-year plan with a policy framework, which will be established in 2021,” Kim added, asking for members of selected households to participate actively in the survey.

The ministry has conducted the survey since 2009, in cooperation with the Korea Statistics Promotion Institute. But this year, the survey has been expanded to include the largest number of respondents ever, amid the steady increase in the number of multicultural families.

National

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2021-08-03T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-08-03T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://ktimes.pressreader.com/article/281565178805318

The Korea Times Co.