South Korea’s population will likely plummet to 38 million by 2070.
According to a Statistics Korea report on its outlook for the nation’s population and for the world on Monday, the number of people in the country will drop by 14 million from the current 52 million.
South Korea’s grim population decline is in stark contrast to the growth outlook for the world, which is expected to expand nearly 30 percent from current estimates of seven-point-97 billion to ten-point-three billion by 2070.
The country’s current population growth rate of minus zero-point-23 percent will likely become steeper to minus one-point-24 percent by 2070, amid a continued decline in the nation’s fertility rate, which stood at zero-point-81 as of 2021, ranking the second-lowest in the world, just one notch above Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, the office said South Korea’s life expectancy of 83-point-five years will exceed the global average by eleven-point-five years, which will raise the portion of the elderly to 46-point-four percent of total population by 2070.
Source: KBS World Radio