[TALKING TRENDS] 'Petfamjok'

These days, people don’t ask why married couples don't have children. “Do you keep any pets?” they ask instead.

Seo Jeong-minThe author is a senior reporter of the JoongAng Ilbo.

“How many kids do you have?”

“We don’t have any kids. We kept putting it off and it has come to this. We’ve been lazy.”

“Any dogs or cats?”

This was a conversation I recently had with an acquaintance. These days, people don’t ask why married couples don't have children. “Do you keep any pets?” they ask instead.

According to data released by Statistics Korea in 2020, 3.12 million households in Korea had a pet.

As the number of families with pets is on the rise, the words petfamjok and dinkpetjok have been newly coined.

Petfamjok is a combination of the English word pet, the start of the English word family and the Korean word jok, which has a meaning similar to tribe or clan. It is used to describe people who consider their pet to be a member of the family.

Dinkpetjok is a combination of the acronym DINK — or double income, no kids — which describes a married couple with no children, the English word pet and the Korean word jok. In a nut shell, dinkpetjok refers to a double-income household with a pet and no children.

In the second volume of "The report on Korea’s households" (translated) released on Dec. 7 by The 100, a research institute of at NH Investment & Securities, a variety of asset management tools are introduced for different types of family. Both petfamjok and dinkpetjok are among the types listed.

BY SEO JEONG-MIN [meantree@joongang.co.kr]