Korea Fears It Will Age Into Japan

Sometime in 2016, the size of South Korea’s working-age population will peak at 37 million; then it will likely drop 1.3 percent by decade’s end. “We have fundamental structural problems,” says Kwon Tae Shin, president and chief executive officer of the Korea Economic Research Institute.

“The situation will be similar to Japan,” says Lee Young Wook, a fellow at Korea Development Institute, a think tank in Seoul. Japan’s population reached a high in 2008 and has fallen ever since. One in four Japanese is 65 or older, and the working-age population peaked in 1995. In South Korea, those 65 and older make up 13 percent of the population, up from 10 percent in 2007, according to Statistics Korea. By some measures, the problem is worse: At just 1.2 children per woman, Korea’s birthrate is lower than Japan’s 1.4. (To keep population steady, the rate needs to be just over 2.) A 2015 report by London-based nonprofit HelpAge International measured quality of life for the elderly in 96 countries. Japan made the top 10, but South Korea came in at 60, third-to-last among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nations, ahead of Turkey and Greece.