Natural population decline for 2 years and 7 months… 20,000 births pull-up

Monthly birth trends nationwide. [사진 출처 = 통계청]

While the number of deaths is increasing due to aging and COVID-19, births are shrinking, and the population has declined for two years and seven months in a row. In the last month of May, the number of children born barely exceeded 20,000. The aging population is also analyzed to have an impact on the decrease in domestic population movement.

According to the ‘May Population Trend’ released by the National Statistical Office on the 27th, the number of babies born in May was 27, a decrease of 8.8% from a year ago. The crude birth rate, which is the number of births per 1,000 live births, was 4.6, down 0.4 from the same month last year.

The number of births has been declining for the 78th month since December 2015 compared to the same month of the previous year. The number of births in May decreased by more than 1,000 compared to the previous month in April (21,124 people).

The death toll stood at 28,859, an increase of 12.8% from a year earlier. Both the number of deaths and the increase were the largest since statistics were compiled in May.

Regarding this, Noh Hyeong-joon, head of the Population Trends Division at Statistics Korea, said, “It seems to be the effect of the continued aging population and the Omicron pandemic earlier this year.”

The natural increase by subtracting the number of deaths from the number of births is a decrease of 8852 people. The natural population decline has been continuing for 31 months since November 2019.

There were 17,041 marriages in May, up 5.5% from a year earlier. On the other hand, there were 8372 divorces, down 0.9% from the same month last year.

Population migration in the last 3 years. [사진 출처 = 통계청]

According to ‘June’s Population Movement Statistics’ released by the National Statistical Office on the same day, the number of people who moved last month was 477,000, down 12.2% from the same month of the previous year. The number of migrants was the lowest since 1974, when it recorded 360,000.

The number of immigrants has been decreasing compared to the same month of the previous year for one year and six consecutive months, starting in January last year.

The population mobility rate, which refers to the number of people moving per 100 people, was 11.3%, down 1.6 percentage points from the same month of the previous year. This is the lowest figure since 2000 when related statistics began to be compiled.

Regarding the situation of low population mobility in Korea, Manager Noh explained, “It is analyzed that this year’s housing sales volume decreased in addition to the trend of a decrease in the number of people moving due to an aging population.”

Among the cities and provinces across the country, there were 7 places, including Gyeonggi-do (3896 people), Incheon (2011 people), and Chungnam (1114 people), where a net influx occurred. On the other hand, a net outflow occurred in 10 cities and provinces, including Seoul (-1810 people), Gyeongnam (-1649 people), and Gyeongbuk (-1143 people).

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