As Asia's fourth largest economy, , South Korea is facing a population problem that may be more severe than Japan, the world's most serious aging country.
The latest data from the Korea Statistics Department shows that as of November 1, 2021, South Korea's total population was 51.738 million, a decrease of 91,000 from the previous year, a decrease of 0.2%. This is the first time that South Korea has seen negative population growth since this statistics began in 1949.
According to Korean media reports, South Korea's population (natural) growth rate peaked at 3% in 1960, and has continued to decline since then, starting and falling below 1% in 1995.
In this regard, Huang Fei, director of the Seoul Science Graduate School, was not surprised. She told First Financial reporter, "South Korea's aging and low birth rate have been going on for several years, and similar topics often appear in news media, so the birth population is less than the death population, that is, the population has negative growth, which is sooner or later."
The South Korean Statistics Department estimates that according to the current trend, by 2070, the population will decrease to 37.66 million, and the working population will be reduced from the current 37 million to 17 million.
Huang Fei emphasized that the most prominent hidden danger of negative population growth for a country is the aging population and the reduction of labor force, which has a direct impact on the economy. At present, the tone of the new South Korean government's population policy has changed from coping with low fertility rates to adapting to the era of population reduction.
The world's lowest total fertility rate
Previously, some Korean media predicted that South Korea would not see a decline in the total population, including foreigners, until 2028. However, the sudden outbreak of the new crown epidemic has led to restrictions on entry of foreigners, which has led to the reality of a decline in the total population.
. Apart from the factors of the decline in foreign population, the main reason for the decline in South Korea's total population is the sharp drop in the birth population.
According to the "2022 World Population Status" report jointly released by the South Korean Population Health and Welfare Association and United Nations Population Fund on July 20, South Korea's total fertility rate is 1.1, the same as the data last year and the previous year, ranking 198th in the world, and is at the bottom for three consecutive years.
According to the definition of United Nations , the sum fertility rate refers to the average number of children born per woman of childbearing age, and the sum fertility rate of 2.1 is the basic condition for maintaining intergenerational replacement and population stability.
The above report shows that although the number of newborns in Japan is also declining year by year, Japan's total fertility rate in 2021 was 1.28, which is still higher than that of South Korea.
The latest data from the Korea Statistics Department shows that the number of newborns in South Korea in May this year was 20,007, a year-on-year decrease of 1,928 (-8.8%). The figure hit a new low since relevant statistics since 1981, and also decreased for 74 consecutive months since April 2016.
In addition, the above data shows that the number of single families in South Korea is also growing rapidly. Last year, this number was 7.17 million households, an increase of 7.9% over the previous year, accounting for 33.4% of the total number of households, exceeding one-third for the first time; the number of two-person households accounted for 28.3%, an increase of 3.6% over the previous year. The total number of single and two-person families accounts for 61.7%.
As early as 2006, David Coleman, a professor of demographics at the University of Oxford in the UK, warned of South Korea's population problem. Due to the continued decline in South Korea's fertility rate, South Korea may become the first country on the earth to "disappear naturally".
In order to alleviate the crisis of the decline in the birth rate, the South Korean government has previously tried to promote educational reforms such as lowering the enrollment age of primary school students, such as lowering the enrollment age of primary school from 6 to 5 years old. The South Korean government hopes that through this move, young students can graduate early and increase the labor force; at the same time, early graduation and employment may also advance the age of marriage and childbirth for young people, which will help increase the birth rate and alleviate the problem of population aging. However, the above plan was strongly opposed by the Korean people during the stage of soliciting social opinions. After several days of stalemate, South Korea's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Park Soon Ai, who had only been in office for 34 days, resigned, bringing an end to this unfinished reform.
Running into the "super-old society"
At the other end of the population structure, South Korea is no longer "young". The above data shows that in 2021, the proportion of the adolescent population in South Korea accounted for 11.8% of the total population, down 0.3 percentage points from a year ago; the proportion of the elderly population increased from 16.0% to 16.8%.Compared with 2005 (19.0% of teenagers and 9.2% of the elderly), the proportion of teenagers decreased by nearly half, while the proportion of the elderly was nearly doubled.
In addition, the average age of South Korea's population rose from 42.9 years old in 2020 to 43.5 years old last year, and the aging index (the proportion of every 100 young people with middle-aged and elderly people) rose from 132.5 to 143 during this period. The number of elderly people who are under working age (15 to 64 years old) needs to bear responsibility for the number of elderly people supported by every 100 working-age people (15 to 64 years old) has increased from 22.2 in 2020 to 23.6 last year.
According to relevant UN standards, the proportion of elderly people over 65 years old in the social population accounts for more than 7% of the population is "aging"; more than 14% of the population over 65 years old means entering an "oldering society", and more than 20% is "super-aged society".
The Korean Labor Research Institute once predicted in the "Final Report on the Introduction of the Pension Annuity System" that South Korea has shown an aging trend since 1999 and will completely become an "angeful society" by 23 years later. The above research points out that France's transformation from an aging society was about 115 years, Sweden's is 85 years, the United States is 75 years, and the United Kingdom and Germany are 45 years. Even Japan, which currently accounts for the largest proportion of aging in the world (28.8%), has taken 26 years to enter the "aging society".
In reality, South Korea is aging faster than expected. According to data released by the South Korean government, it has taken less than 23 years to enter the "oldering society". Some Korean media believe that South Korea may "run" into a "super-aged society" within 4 years.
Keichiro Oizumi, a professor at the Asia University of Japan, told Caiichiro of the First Financial Daily that South Korea's birth rate has been lower than Japan for many years, and the speed of aging will rise rapidly in the future, and it is estimated that it will surpass Japan in 2050.
The employment rate and poverty rate of the elderly are both high
Although the aging rate in South Korea is accelerating, a fact that cannot be ignored is that the employment rate of the elderly in South Korea is the highest in the world. data released by the OECD (OECD ) at the end of last year showed that the employment rate of South Korea's population over 65 was 34.1% last year, an increase of 1.2 percentage points from 2019, setting a record high. 34.1% is more than double the average level of OECD member countries (14.7%), and South Korea is therefore ranked first among the 38 member countries for the first time with this data, with the second place being Iceland (31%) and the third place being Japan (25.1%).
Huang Fei said that in South Korea, there are indeed many elderly people who are still working. There are old men with white hair who are renting out, elderly guards who are busy in the community, and some old ladies who can't stand up can be seen selling vegetables and rice cakes everywhere on the roadside.
"The last Moon Jae-in government period promoted the increase of 'silver employment', allowing some retired elderly people who are still strong to do some labor that is not particularly heavy for express sorting, garbage sorting, community services, etc., to obtain a certain source of income and reduce the burden of pension." Huang Fei said.
Although the number of people employed by the elderly over 60 years old far exceeded the number of young people during the Moon Jae-in government, Huang Fei believes that this support for silver employment is only "treatment of symptoms but not root causes." "On the one hand, the positions provided by the government are all 'temporary workers', with only 300,000 won (about 1,600 yuan) per month. They do not need to work 8 hours a day. They just allow these elderly people who can take care of themselves to have something to do, and there are also names to increase their income from their later years, which is much better than directly giving money subsidies." She said, "But enterprises may not buy it very much. Although some large enterprises have also experienced the individual phenomenon of rehiring (rehiring is still relatively common in Korean universities), enterprises are ultimately profit-making organizations. If retired employees cannot create more added value, they will not have the energy to 'maintain idle people'."
Some Korean media believe that the high employment rate of the elderly in South Korea is mainly due to "short of money", that is, the elderly lack pension and other income, and have to work and make money when they get older, and do not add burden to their children. The survey results released by the South Korean Statistics Department last year showed that more than half of the elderly (57.7%) in South Korea (57.7%) are still earning their living expenses on their own, 8 percentage points higher than 49.7% in 2015. According to OECD data, the poverty rate of South Korea's population over 65 years old reaches 43.4%, the highest among OECD countries and nearly three times the average level of member countries.
Huang Fei does not agree with this. She said that "re-employment" is also very common in South Korea after retirement at the age of 65. "Many Koreans have the idea that "only they get flaws when they are idle," so they always look for things to do, not necessarily for money."
At present, South Korea, which is facing a "population cliff" crisis, has begun to conduct social discussions on the extension or cancellation of the retirement age system. However, she believes that South Korea is indeed facing the dual pressure of population aging and null births, and as life expectancy extends, delaying retirement of at is destined to happen. "How to provide more capable and thoughtful elderly people with more space to display their abilities is what governments and enterprises should think about," she said.
