S.Korea Elderly population surpasses 10 million

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1. SUBMISSION STATEMENT:

   The elderly population in South Korea surpassed 10 million for the first time, Statistics Korea said Tuesday.

   Those aged 65 and older stood at 10.12 million as of November last year, accounting for 19.5 percent of the total population of 51.81 million, roughly one in five. That also brought the average age of the population to 46.2.

   Amid an aging society with a super-low birthrate, the elderly population has steadily increased in recent years from 8.71 million in 2021 to 9.61 million in 2023, while the working-age population continues to dwindle.

   Those aged 15 to 64 stood at 36.26 million last year, down 283,000 from a year ago, with the number of children also dropping by 199,000 to 5.42 million during the same period, further worsening the demographic imbalance.

2. Thinking about this the other day, death rates will start to go up with so many elderly people. It will simply overwjelm the care system. With so many people minor issues begin to be dangerous. Get a bad cold or take a fall, there are just so many other people that will need help too. My elderly mother has to go to the hospital constantly for simple check ups. How many check ups will be skipped? How many minor issues will turn serious because there are not enough people to handle them all. 30 police for every thousand to respond to wellfare checks, 15000~ EMS. In 10 million wharlt are the chances that something serious enough can happen to enough of them at one time?

3. Pretty much twice as many people aged 65 and older compared to 15 and under.

   With 5.4m children under 15 and an annual birth rate below 250,000 (on a good year!), even if things don’t change within 15 years, S Korea will have only 3.75m children under 15. And if these 5.4 m children go on to have only 1 child per woman in their lifetimes (the current rate is 0.75 so 1 is actually a pretty big increase), they are likely to produce only 2.7m children – so even if the current 15-40 year old populace produce 3.75m children in the next 15 years, the next cohort might be only 2.7m.

   Even if every single child born lived to 90 years old, this is a population of less than 25m which is half the current population by 2125. (And these are high end estimates). Even if S Korea stabilizes their birth rate, their population is likely to be less than 5 million by 2200 – this is half the population of Seoul today.

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