Significant Trend
South Korea’s total population stood at 51,692.000 as of July 1 2022, down 46,000, or 0.1 percent, from 2021, according to the results of the 2022 Population and Housing Census released by Statistics Korea on July 27.
The total population of the census includes foreigners who have been living in Korea for more than three months while excluding Koreans who have been living abroad for more than three months at the time of the survey. It counted the number of people who actually lived in Korea, regardless of their residency registration or nationality.
In 2022, the foreign population was 1.752 million, accounting for 3.4 percent of the nation’s total population.
The decline in Korea’s total population in 2022 was largely due to the fact that the number of Koreans sank by 148,000 (0.3 percent) from 2021. The decisive factor is the natural decline of population due to the chronic low birthrate and aging of Korean society. Of the drop of 148,000 Koreans in 2022, about 110,000 were due to a natural contraction. The rest was due to international migration, i.e., foreign residents’ exit from the country.
The foreign-born population, on the other hand, increased by 102,000 (6.2 percent) from 2021. It declined for two consecutive years until 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 severely restricted foreign citizens’ entry into Korea but surged in 2022 as the pandemic waned and quarantine regulations eased.
Meanwhile, the total number of households in Korea in 2022 came in at 22.38 million, an increase of 360,000 (1.6 percent) from 2021. While the total population decreased, the total number of households increased as households became more fragmented.
The number of “single-person households” stood at 7.52 million, an increase of 337,000 (4.7 percent) from the previous year. Single-person households accounted for 34.5 percent of all households in 2022, up from 33.4 percent in 2021.
There were 399,000 multicultural households. Among them, 42.8 percent were naturalized, 37.2 percent were marriage immigrants, 11.1 percent were children of multicultural families, and 8.9 percent were other types. Their nationalities were Korean-Chinese with a share of 32.3 percent, Vietnamese with 21.8 percent, and Chinese with 19.0 percent.