The proportion of foreign residents in South Korea’s total population could rise to around 7 percent over the next two decades. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEJONG, Apr. 12 (Korea Bizwire) – The proportion of foreign residents in South Korea’s total population could rise to around 7 percent over the next two decades, according to newly released government projections that underscore the country’s changing demographics amid a declining birthrate.
If current trends accelerate, one out of every 10 people in the nation’s working-age population would be foreign-born by 2042, the forecasts suggest.
On April 11, Statistics Korea unveiled its “Estimates of Domestic and Foreign Population from 2022-2042,” incorporating the agency’s 2022 baseline population projections while factoring in nationality changes.
To account for uncertainties, three scenarios – medium, high, and low – were modeled by combining assumptions about fertility, mortality and international migration flows.
Under the medium-variant projection, South Korea’s total population is expected to decrease from 51.67 million in 2022 to 49.63 million in 2042. The share of Korean nationals would decline from 96.8 percent (50.02 million) to 94.3 percent (46.77 million) over this period.
Conversely, the foreign population is forecast to grow from 1.65 million in 2022 to 2.85 million in 2042, with its proportion of the total population rising from 3.2 percent to 5.7 percent. The high-variant projection shows the foreign population reaching 3.61 million, or 6.9 percent of the total.
The demographic shift is projected to be even more pronounced among the working-age population aged 15-64.
For Korean nationals in this group, the medium-variant projects a decline from 35.27 million in 2022 to 25.73 million by 2042. But the foreign working-age population is expected to increase from 1.47 million to 2.36 million over the same period.
As a result, the share of foreigners in South Korea’s total working-age population would more than double from 4 percent in 2022 to 8.4 percent in 2042 under the medium scenario. The high-variant forecast puts the foreign working-age population at 2.94 million, or 10.1 percent of the total, by 2042 as the decline among Korean nationals accelerates.
The “migration background” population, defined as those with at least one foreign-born parent, is projected to grow from 2.2 million in 2022 to 4.04 million in 2042, accounting for 8.1 percent of the total population, up from 4.3 percent.
The number of elderly Korean nationals is forecast to nearly double from 8.89 million in 2022 to 17.25 million by 2042. The total dependency ratio, indicating working-age Koreans supporting non-working ages, is projected to rise from 41.8 per 100 in 2022 to 81.8 per 100 in 2042.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
