The number of multicultural children in South Korea has gone up more than eight fold from 2006 to 2015, showed a report released by the Gender Ministry and the Office for Government Policy Coordination.

A multicultural child mainly refers to a child born in Korea to a Korean national and his or her foreign-born spouse. As of last year, more than 85 percent of all marriage migrants in Korea were women.

The report showed that there are 208,000 individuals born to multicultural families living in South Korea as of last year.

Among them, 82,536 are attending elementary, middle and high schools, as of 2015. Of the multicultural schoolchildren, more than 70 percent of them are in elementary school.

The report also showed that 20 percent of all multicultural children aged 15-24 are not in school and out of work.

The Office for Government Policy Coordination said it will increase the number of kindergartens for multicultural children from 30 to 60 this year. Other newly introduced policies include job training programs, therapy sessions and volunteering programs for multicultural children to participate in, especially by using their bilingual abilities.
(Graphic: Nam Kyung-don)