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South Korea is now officially a “super-old” society, with one in five people over the age of 65, according to figures released on Tuesday, further worsening demographic crisis in the country.
According to data released by the Ministry of Interior and Security on December 24, people over the age of 65 now number 10.24 million, making up about 20 percent of the East Asian country’s total population of 51.22 million.
The United Nations classifies a country where over 7 percent of the population is over 65 as an “aging society,” with 14 percent as an “aged society,” and with over 20 percent as a “super-old society.”
In South Korea, 22.15 percent of women and 17.83 percent of men are 65 or older.
The government called demographic crisis “national emergency” and taken steps to address it, ranging from offering financial incentives and childcare support to designing broader policies aimed at improving work-life balance.
Country fertility ratewhich is the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, steadily declining since 2015. It fell below one child per woman for the first time in 2018, reaching 0.98 and further to a historic low of 0.72 in 2023.
The number is among the lowest in the world and well below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman, the threshold needed to maintain the population without relying on immigration.
The population could be halved by 2100, which would worsen existing social and economic challenges, experts warn.
Releasing the data, the interior ministry said in a statement that the government must urgently establish a “population-focused ministry” to enact “fundamental and systematic response measures” to address the population crisis.
“We will mobilize all the nation’s capabilities to overcome the low birth rate that can be considered a state of emergency in the country,” the country’s now suspended president Yoon Suk Yeolhe said in may when he announced the creation “Low Birth Rate Counter-Planning Ministries”.
“I think the important thing going forward is really the economy. Corporate growth and job creation are also important, but what I think is more important is that we try harder to look for the inconvenient things in each person’s life and solve them.”
The creation of a “population-focused ministry” has been talked about for months, but progress has stalled due to infighting within the National Assembly over the president’s declaration of a state of emergency earlier this month, a subsequent impeachment trial and further investigations into allegations of insurrection.
Several reasons have been cited for South Korea’s declining fertility rate, such as the rising cost of living, stagnant wages and gender imbalance which leaves women with most of the emotional and physical burden of raising children.
In March it was announced that the number of marriages has declined by 40 percent in the past decade. The number of marriages in 2023 was 193,673 compared to 322,807 in 2013.
South Korea has launched several initiatives that increase the populationbut they did not make a significant difference.
A a government scheme to motivate parents to have children offers couples financial assistance ranging from 35 million won (£20,566) to 50 million won (£29,380) through various incentive and support programs from the moment the child is born until the child turns seven.
in September, the pair received 170m won (£95,757) in maternity benefits after the birth of quintuplets.
In October, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare awarded two women with medals for civil service for the birth of 13 children each.