Marriage-related posts on anonymous platform Blind rise sharply, along with fear and sadness

Marriage-related posts on the anonymous workplace community Blind tripled last year compared with 2023 and growing share carried negative emotions such as fear and sadness, a private think tank specializing in demographics said Wednesday.

The Korea Peninsula Population Institute for Future (KPPIF) analyzed 22,095 marriage-related posts on Blind from 2018 through 2025.

Blind is an anonymous online community where people post under verified employer accounts, making it a popular platform for candid workplace discussions in Korea. 

Posts about marriage climbed from 3,073 in 2023 to 9,201 last year. The surge tracks a broader recovery in marriages, which have risen for three consecutive years after bottoming at 191,700 in 2022 and reaching 240,300 last year.

The share of posts carrying negative emotions rose to 53.6 percent last year from 46.3 percent in 2023, and fear emerged as the single most common emotion in marriage-themed posts. Entries marked by sadness climbed to 16.1 percent over three years, up from 9.5 percent, while fewer than one in 10 posts treated marriage as a happy subject.

Money worries dominated the discussions. More than half of all marriage-related posts last year, 50.6 percent, dealt with jobs, salaries, loans or housing. Even as more people decide to marry, the financial demands of doing so weigh just as heavily, the institute said.

"While people are increasingly saying 'I want to get married,' negative feelings like 'when I actually think about marriage, it feels frightening and sad' are also rising," said Yoo Hye-jung, director of KPPIF's population research center.

"This should be read as a signal that the desire to marry remains, but the walls of reality are still high."

Relationship issues have also drawn increased attention. Posts about dating apps and matchmaking services made up 9.7 percent of last year's marriage-related discussions, while those about romantic relationships and dating life accounted for 9.4 percent. Beyond economic conditions, finding a compatible partner and sustaining a relationship has emerged as a new concern for office workers thinking about marriage.

"Young people still face economic hardship, and now the difficulty of forming relationships is being added on top," Yoo said. 

"Structural approaches such as housing and financial support need to be paired with more detailed policy measures that broaden opportunities for people to meet and provide practical support for relationship-building."

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

BY JUNG JONG-HOON [[email protected]]