[Initial Insight] Regional Disappearance and One-Month Living

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Jong-hwa] "Where did you go during the holidays?" This is the greeting from a colleague you meet at work after the Lunar New Year holiday. At some point, people stopped asking, "Did you visit your hometown well?" Although the news still reports on traffic congestion on the way home for the holidays, it is now more natural that the "place" visited during the holiday refers to a travel destination for rest and leisure rather than the hometown where one was born and raised.

One reason for not going to the hometown during holidays is the desire to escape the stress of housework, long travel times, and expenses, but perhaps another reason is that the hometown one wants to visit, the hometown that feels like home from childhood memories, has disappeared.

Countless hometowns across the Korean Peninsula, except for Seoul, are collectively called "countryside" or "regions," but many of these hometowns are actually at risk of disappearing. According to statistics from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, as of December 31 last year, the registered population of South Korea was 51,439,038, a decrease of 199,771 (0.39%) from 51,638,809 in 2021. It is projected to decrease to 37.66 million by 2070. As the population cliff intensifies, except for Seoul, the Gyeonggi area, metropolitan cities, or regional hub cities, many areas nationwide face the risk of disappearing.

According to the quarterly journal "Regional Industry and Employment" published last year by the Korea Employment Information Service, extinction risk areas are defined as places where the extinction risk index?calculated by dividing the female population aged 20-39 by the population aged 65 and over?is below 0.5. There were zero such areas in 2000, but this increased to 80 in 2015 and 102 in 2020. As of March last year, there were 113 extinction risk areas, accounting for half of the 228 cities, counties, and districts nationwide.

The government has designated 107 areas nationwide as population decline areas (89) and areas of interest (18), and is promoting various policies such as providing 1 trillion won from the Local Extinction Response Fund and implementing the Hometown Love Donation System, but the effects remain uncertain.

Experts agree that to prevent regional extinction, job creation and the establishment of groundbreaking housing, childcare, and cultural infrastructure are necessary to make these areas livable for young people. Professor Jung Seok of the Department of Urban Engineering at the University of Seoul, who is leading a population migration movement called "One million people leave the metropolitan area each year to establish regional republics," said, "If a major population shift occurs over the next 10 years, with the metropolitan area population decreasing by 10 million and the non-metropolitan population increasing by 10 million, many of the problems currently afflicting South Korea will be resolved."

Professor Jung recommended starting "living in the region for a month" as a way for young people, baby boomers in their 60s, and parents to leave the metropolitan area. As a method to encourage parents to move out of the metropolitan area, he introduced the "Student Recruitment Campaign" by the Resident Autonomy Committee of Bukil-myeon, Haenam County, Jeollanam-do. To save Bukil Elementary School, which was facing closure ahead of its 100th anniversary last year, the committee, with support from Haenam County, renovated vacant houses and rented them cheaply to relocating families, guaranteed 100% employment by hiring office workers or assistant teachers, and secured store locations desired by self-employed people. Through this, 22 households and about 90 people moved into Bukil-myeon within a year, and the population aged 30-40 increased by 5% compared to a year earlier.

To break the vicious cycle where rural areas worry about survival due to people leaving and metropolitan areas worry about declining quality of life due to overcrowding, whether through individual month-long stays or government and local government balanced regional development policies, execution is key. It is still January, a good time to make up your mind and start?why not add it to your goals for this year?