Domestic Population Below 50 Million Next Year... By 2040, 1 in 3 People Will Be Elderly

Total Population Decreases by 1.65 Million to 50.19 Million

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Yoon-joo] The domestic population will fall below 50 million next year. By 2040, one in three people in South Korea will be elderly aged 65 or older. The foreign and migration-background population will increase to 3.23 million.

Statistics Korea announced on the 14th the population projections for domestic and foreign residents from 2020 to 2040, including these details.

Statistics Korea forecasts that South Korea's total population (domestic + foreign) will decrease by 1.65 million from 51.84 million in 2020 to 50.19 million in 2040. As low birth rates and aging intensify, the population decline rate will accelerate over time.

During this period, the proportion of domestic residents in the total population will decrease from 96.7% to 95.7%, while foreigners will increase from 3.3% to 4.3%. The rise in the foreign population somewhat alleviates the severe population decline.

The domestic population will decrease from 50.03 million this year to 49.92 million next year. The working-age domestic population was 35.83 million in 2020 and is expected to decrease by 3.62 million over ten years. It will decline to 32.21 million in 2030 and 26.76 million in 2040.

The proportion of the working-age population in the total population will fall from 71.5% in 2020 to 55.7% in 2040. During the same period, the proportion of children aged 0-14 will also decrease from 12.4% to 8.9%.

In contrast, the domestic elderly population (65 and older) will more than double from 8.07 million to 16.98 million during this period. Statistics Korea projects that the elderly population will exceed 10 million in 2025 and surpass 15 million in 2035.

Accordingly, the proportion of elderly aged 65 and over will rise from 16.1% in 2020 to 35.3% in 2040. This means that by 2040, one in three people will be elderly.

The old-age dependency ratio, which indicates the number of elderly aged 65 and over per 100 working-age people aged 15-64, will increase nearly threefold from 22.5 in 2020 to 63.4 in 2040. This means that three working-age people will support two elderly individuals.