[BEN - Press Reporter Sung Hee Kim] It turned out that ½ employees owe debts. Especially those of who are married said they have to pay for their debts. Among the debtors 36.9% of them said that they experienced borrowing money to pay for debts. It tells us that is not a small number of population who is living based on their debts.

The result is from Job Korea, a job seeking web portal that surveyed 1,079 of male and female employees regarding current household economy. First of all, 45.2% of participants responded ‘yes’ to the question, ‘Do you owe a debt in your name?’. In age groups, it was found that 34.2% in 20s, 48.8% in 30s and 56.6% in 40s respectively, responded to the survey and the age of the group and positive respondents increase proportionally. Between genders, positive respondents were more in the male groups by 55.0% than in the female group by 37.4%.

Especially more than half of the respondents who are married, by 62.6%, said they owe debts, and those who are not resulted in 38.0%. The aggregate amount of debts is, on the average, 5,486 million won for married employees and 2,012 million won for non-married, and 3,494 million won for the total responses.

It is assumed that the reason of the proportion and the amount of debts is higher among married respondents is because they are paying for the mortgage of their own homes. For the question ‘what is the biggest reason to be in debt?’ according to the survey 68.3% married respondents said it was from the mortgage loan, which resulted in the highest proportion. Other than that 15.1% of responses were the second highest, which was for the living expenses. On the other hand, out of all non-married respondents 36.7% said to be in debts from tuition, and 35.6% from expenses, which were the first and the second highest.

Why would you ever want a house with having debts? It was asked to 68.3% respondents who are in debts from mortgage loans. As a result 48.9% said that it was the timing ‘so it can be now or never’ and 17.4% said they found places they wanted, 12.6% said they need places when having double income households, 12.6% said it was to live in Seoul.

4 out of 10 of these debtors said they had loans to pay for other debts. The most reason was because they did not have money to pay for either the principal or interest by 37.8%, which is not a small proportion of them who are having lives on debts. Other than this 28.9% said it was the time to make payment on loans, and26.1% said they wanted to switch to other loan products.

Feeling of burden and stress on debts was really high. It was asked to respondents if they feel burdensome on their debts and 47.3% said they feel a little, and 43.2% said they a lot. Those who said they do not responded only 8.2%, and 1.2%of those who do not feel any burden, respectively.

How long do you expect to clear the debts? To this question, married respondents said within 5 to 10years by 33.2%, following 31.7% of respondents that said within 5 years, and 17.1% said within 10 to 15years. Non-married respondents replied as ‘within 5years’ resulted in the biggest proportion by 58.1%.

[ⓒ 기업경제신문. 무단전재-재배포 금지]