This photo shows newborns at a hospital. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s newest generation is expected to live longer than any before it. Government data released Wednesday show that babies born in 2024 can expect an average lifespan of 83.7 years — a modest increase from the year prior, but another step in a long arc of rising longevity.
In 1970, when the country first began tracking such figures, life expectancy hovered at just 62.3 years, a reminder of how radically South Korean society has changed in half a century.
The trajectory hasn’t been perfectly smooth. In 2022, average life expectancy dipped by nearly a full year — the first meaningful decline in decades — as the country absorbed the aftershocks of COVID-19. But the number rebounded in 2023, and officials say the familiar upward climb appears to have resumed.
“Life expectancy decreased slightly in 2022 due to the effects of the pandemic, but it has since resumed its upward trend,” said Park Hyun-jeong of the Ministry of Data and Statistics, noting that expanded health-care access and more frequent medical visits have played a role.
The divide between men and women, once stark, is also narrowing. Boys born in 2024 are expected to live 80.8 years, girls 86.6 — a gap of 5.8 years, down from 8.6 years in the mid-1980s. The shift reflects decades of declines in male deaths from accidents, liver disease, and other preventable causes.
By international standards, South Korea remains an outlier. Its men are projected to live 2.3 years longer than the OECD average, and its women nearly three years longer.
Among the 38 member states, South Korean women now rank third in longevity, behind only Japan and Spain — a reminder that even as the country grapples with demographic anxieties and a declining birthrate, it continues its quiet march into what is becoming one of the world’s longest-lived societies.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
