Korea’s Aging Population: A Growing Concern

According to Statistics Korea, the country’s proportion of elderly people and total dependency ratio are expected to jump to third place in the world in about 50 years if the current low birth rate continues.

The proportion of the elderly aged 65 or older among Korea’s population in 2072 is predicted to be 47.7%, an increase of 28.5 percentage points from 19.2% this year. This ranks third in the world after Hong Kong and Puerto Rico, and is higher than even Japan, which was predicted to have 36.9%.

The total dependency ratio, which refers to the ratio of the youth and elderly population supported by 100 people of working age, will increase 2.8 times from 42.5 to 118.5 this year, ranking third in the world.

Declining Birth Rate and Population

The total fertility rate, which was 0.72 last year and third lowest among countries worldwide after Hong Kong and Macau, is expected to be 1.08 in 2072, but is expected to fall further to second in the bottom after Macau.

As a result, only 160,000 babies are born each year, or just 0.1% of all babies born worldwide. Korea’s population is expected to drop from 52 million this year to 36 million in 2072, falling from 29th in the world to 59th, which is 30 places.

This represents about 0.4% of the world’s population. The combined population of South and North Korea is also expected to drop from 78 million to 59 million this year.

Global Population Trends

In contrast, the world population is expected to continue to increase, especially in Africa, from 8.16 billion this year to 10.22 billion in 2072.

Korea’s life expectancy is predicted to be 91.1 years in 2072, the third highest in the world.