High Levels of Marriage and Education, Poor Nutrition
Marriage is virtually universal in North Korea. In 2008, 25 percent of females ages 25 to 29 had never been married, but the figure dropped to only 4 percent for women ages 30 to 34. Of ever-married women ages 30 to 34, 48 percent had first been married at age 24 or later. Divorce is extremely rare. Only 1.7 percent of women ages 40 to 44 are listed as "separated" in the census. Virtually the entire population is listed as "literate" in the census, even up to the age group 80 and over. Educational attainment is relatively high, with 77 percent of males ages 30 to 34 and 79 percent of females having finished secondary school. Among that same group, 12 percent of males and 11 percent of females had completed college. In the labor force, 30 percent of males and 38 percent of females are engaged in agriculture.
Housing is free in North Korea but often cramped and lacking amenities. Extended families average 4.4 persons while most households live in two-room units. Comparatively small apartments in Asia are certainly not limited to North Korea, however. Eighty-five percent of North Korean households have piped water but flush toilets are available to only 58 percent with pit latrines used by most others. The main cooking fuels are coal in the urban areas (63 percent) and wood (28 percent). In rural areas, those proportions are roughly reversed. Very few use electricity for heating or cooking. Twenty-one percent of households live in apartment buildings but, of those, only 4 percent have central heating. The vast majority use coal or wood for heating in a briquette or wood hole in the dwelling.
North Korea's policy of "self-reliance" has contributed to its chronic food shortages; its rugged land and relatively harsh climate are not conducive to productive farming. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, along with bureaucratic mismanagement and natural disasters in North Korea, began a series of agricultural crises that lasted for much of the 1990s and continue today. North Korea has typically been reluctant to ask for food aid from international organizations but it did receive support from the World Food Programme in the mid-2000s. A 2002 nutrition study found that 39 percent of North Koreans were stunted (low height for age), an indicator of chronic malnutrition; the situation had barely improved several years later.4
Nonetheless, North Korea's willingness to conduct and publish nutrition surveys with assistance from UNICEF and the World Food Programme since 1998 and to publish its 2008 Census has not only been surprising, but has revealed many of its internal problems. In 2009, a Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey-4 was conducted with the assistance of UNICEF. The results will be enlightening.