Senior Citizens Account for 15.5% of Population
Last year, the number of those aged 65 and over accounted for more than 15 percent of the total population of South Korea for the first time. With the working age population and the young population continuing to decrease on the contrary, a rapid decline in labor input is predicted to affect South Korea’s potential economic growth rate.
Statistics Korea announced on Aug. 28 that the number of senior citizens totaled 7.75 million last year to represent 15.5 percent of the entire population.
South Korea became an aged society in 2017 as the ratio reached 14.2 percent. The rate of increase in the number of senior citizens was 0.6 percentage point in each of 2017 and 2018 and rose to 0.7 percentage point last year. The ratio stood at 7.3 percent in 2000 but more than doubled in 19 years.
On the other hand, in 2019, those aged 14 and under decreased from 6.48 million (13 percent) to 6.31 million (12.6 percent) and the other age group decreased from 36.1 million (72.2 percent) to 35.94 million (71.9 percent). As a result, the ratio of the number of senior citizens to 100 working-age persons soared from 10.2 to 21.5 in just one year. Besides, the ratio of the number of senior citizens to 100 persons in the young population group jumped 8.6 percent from 114.1 to 122.7.
These demographic changes are poised to adversely affect the South Korean economy. “South Korea’s potential economic growth rate has fallen since 2010 and this is because the increase in the input of production elements such as labor and capital has slowed down,” the Bank of Korea explained last year, estimating the potential growth rate at 2.5 percent to 2.6 percent. More recently, the OECD estimated the rate at 1.2 percent for the period of 2020 to 2060, mentioning the demographic changes as a key factor.
Statistics Korea also announced that 25.89 million people were living in the capital area, that is, Seoul, Gyeonggi and Incheon last year. The ratio, approximately 50 percent, is an all-time high.