The logos of South Korea’s three major carriers — KT Corp. (L), SK Telecom Co. (C) and LG Uplus Corp. (R) — are shown in this file photo taken July 8, 2020. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — Among those living in Seoul, middle-aged single-person households without incomes are more likely to have been late in payment of mobile phone bills than other groups, data showed Wednesday.
In collaboration with Statistics Korea and SK Telecom Co., the Seoul Metropolitan Government analyzed data for about 3.4 million citizens living in Seoul.
The analysis showed that 15.9 percent of the middle-aged (from 35 to 59 years old) single-person households without incomes had been late paying their phone bills over the past three months, the highest among all age groups.
Compared to other middle-aged individuals who had no income but belonged to two-person or more than three person households, the single-person households without incomes were 1.37 and 1.77 times more likely to be late paying their phone bills, indicating that they are in more dire economic circumstances.
When it came to the number of phone calls, single-person households, in general, made more phone calls than multi-person households.
Young single person households showed no difference by income level. In contrast, elderly single person households showed a big difference in terms of the number of phone calls by income level, with those with higher incomes making more phone calls.
Compared to multi-person households, single-person households made more phone calls but the number of people they phoned was lower than that of multi-person households, indicating that the former make phone calls to a smaller number of people but more frequently.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
