The total number of households in South Korea is expected to start shrinking from 2041 amid the decrease in the number of marriages and the rapidly aging population.
Our Seo Eunkyung has the details.
According to Statistics Korea on Wednesday, Korea's population will start decreasing in 2029, and the total number of households will start decreasing in 2041.
The decline in the number of households comes later than the decline in population because three or four person households will split into one or two person households particularly made up of unmarried individuals or couples whose children have moved out.
In fact, 37-point-3 percent of Korean households in 2047 are expected to be single-person households, up from 28-point-5 percent in 2017.
That figure is higher than in other countries.
As of 2037, the proportion of single households in Korea is expected to stand at 35-point-7 percent while that of Australia is projected to be 26-point-5 percent.
The same figure is expected to hit 30-point-2 percent in 2036 in Canada and 27-point-8 percent in 2038 in New Zealand.
As Korea's trend of rising single-person households combines with the decreasing total population, the number of households in Korea is expected to gradually increase to a peak of around 22.7 million households in 2040 before starting to decrease.
Meanwhile, the worsening aging population is expected to cause the number of single person households aged 65 and older in 2047 to triple compared to the figure for 2017.
Seo Eunkyung, Arirang News.
