Demographic catastrophe in South Korea – the countdown has begun. Population of Seoul and its ethnic composition Territory and population of South Korea

South Korea is the name of the Republic of Korea, adopted in the media to avoid confusion when mentioning the neighboring state. Previously, this country was one with North Korea. Therefore, the peoples living there today have common roots. The population of South Korea for 2019 is 51,294,272 people(current as of March 28, 2019).

History of the South Korean ethnic group

Koreans have been considered the indigenous inhabitants of the Republic of Korea since ancient times. In the 19th century, the Chinese also immigrated to these territories. Today, immigrants from neighboring countries live and work in South Korea. Taiwanese, Chinese and even a small number of Japanese have lived there for a long time.

The main religions of the country are the following beliefs:

• Buddhism;
• Confucianism;
• Shamanism;
• Christianity;
• Taoism;
• Belief in ancestors.

The official language of the country is Korean. There are many dialects of the official language on the territory of the state.

Population of South Korea in numbers

The South Korean population is more than 51.2 million people. The ratio of men and women is approximately equal. The birth rate is twice as high as the death rate. For example, more than 400 thousand people are born in South Korea every year.

« In the Middle Ages, Korean women gave birth to 7-10 babies. Only 2-3 children survived to adulthood. And the total life expectancy did not exceed 30 years at that time. Therefore, with a high birth rate, Korea has had problems with demography for a long time».

The total area of ​​the Republic of Korea is 99,720 square kilometers. The population density is 510 people per square meter. These indicators directly indicate the overpopulation of the country.

The pension burden ratio in South Korea reaches 15%. The indicator is quite low, because the working population in Korea is much larger than those who are retired.

The average life expectancy in the country is 79 years. Men live up to 75 years, and women live 7 years longer on average. Compared to previous centuries, such figures indicate the development of medicine and concern for the ecology of the republic. In addition, these indicators are close to European standards.

South Korea is a rather closed country for foreigners. That is why its centuries-old traditions can be found unchanged. The South Korean population is growing due to the birth rate, but also due to moderate immigration. The government of the country is not interested in a large increase in population, because there is already overpopulation in South Korea.

Although archaeological finds indicate that there were settlements of primitive man on the territory of the Korean Peninsula about 70 thousand years ago, the official history of south korea or the first state formation in this territory, has later mentions in ancient Chinese chronicles.

According to these historical documents, back in 1300 BC, such a state entity as Ancient Joseon existed on this territory of the Korean Peninsula. However, the turning point in the history of the country was the coming to power of the Koryo dynasty, which happened in the first millennium AD, which became the historical moment when the name of the state appeared on the world geographical and political map, which was the prototype of the modern name of the country - “Korea”, story which goes back centuries.

Capital of South Korea

In the history of mankind, there are quite rare cases when the name of the capital does not mean anything other than just the word “capital”. This is how the word “Seoul” is translated from Korean, a city that until 1945 had a slightly different name, namely Hanyang. However, after the division of the Korean Peninsula into two states, the South Koreans decided to slightly change the name of their capital. And today Seoul, with its 10 million inhabitants, is one of the most densely populated cities in the world.

Population of South Korea

According to UN statistics for the past year, there was an average of just over 51 million inhabitants, which corresponds to 26th place in the world population ranking. Moreover, almost until the seventies of the last century, the bulk of the country’s population were ethnic Koreans, with a small Chinese population. However, with the development of the country's economy, the ethnic composition has changed significantly due to the significant number of Chinese emigrants. So, today the indigenous Korean population makes up no more than one third of the country's total population.

State of South Korea

Despite the fact that it was officially proclaimed in 1948 from the moment the Parliament adopted the Constitution of this country, statehood existed before this date. After all, since 1919, when the Korean Peninsula was occupied by Japanese militarists, there was a legal Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in exile, which was not recognized not only by the government of the USSR, but also by the government of North Korea, led by its head Kim Il Sung.

Politics of South Korea

According to the Constitution in force in South Korea, the form of political and government structure of the country is defined as a parliamentary-presidential republic, the head of which is the President of the Republic, elected by direct universal suffrage for a five-year term. At the same time, legislative power in the country belongs to the parliament, which consists of 300 deputies and is also elected for a five-year term. So, in general it has the most progressive and democratic forms.

Language of South Korea

Both Northern and South Korea communicates in Korean, which, according to many linguists, belongs to a separate group of the so-called “Altai languages”. At the same time, ethnic Koreans living in many countries of the world use it in their communication, namely in China, Japan and a significant part of the countries of Central Asia. In addition, due to South Korea's integration into the global economy, some of the country's population is quite fluent in Japanese, English and Chinese. And this kind of assimilation significantly affects the fact that South Korean culture is increasingly acquiring a Western European character.

How has the population of Korea changed over the centuries? How many people lived there before, and how many live there now?

Answering these questions is not always easy. The main problem faced by those historians who study the demography of medieval Korea (and indeed any medieval state) is the lack of any reliable statistical materials. In this regard, historians of Korea are still in a rather advantageous position, because population censuses have been conducted here quite regularly since ancient times.

At first glance, these censuses were organized according to a harmonious pattern. Once every three years, village elders reported to officials how many families ("yards") there were in a particular village, and how many people lived in each yard. This information was sent to the district, and then to the province, and finally to the capital, where it was summarized.

However, it has long been known that the results of these ancient “censuses” are extremely unreliable. Firstly, they were carried out much less regularly than theoretically expected. Secondly, according to modern historians, censuses could underestimate the real population by more than two times. Often, two censuses taken just a few years apart would produce completely different results. There were several reasons for this. The main one was that the census was not carried out by the authorities for the purpose of idle demographic curiosity. The government needed to know how many taxpayers there were in the country and how many were liable for military service. Based on census data, tax and conscription quotas were determined for each province and each county. It is clear that the majority of the people were not particularly eager to pay taxes or join the glorious ranks of the armed forces. Therefore, any village, any county sought to understate the size of its population, because this meant that later they would have to pay less taxes and send fewer men to serve as soldiers. Thus, the data presented “to the top” were always underestimated to one degree or another. The few officials simply did not have the opportunity to seriously check them, and, often, they did not particularly strive to do so (especially if excessive bureaucratic curiosity was neutralized by expensive donations from interested residents of the district).

Therefore, all data on the population of Korea in the pre-colonial era, that is, in the period before 1910, are extremely unreliable. Apparently, in the 15th century, approximately 7-8 million people lived in the country, that is, 10 times less than now (I remind you that we are talking about both halves of Korea, and currently the total population of the North and South is 70 million Human). The 15 millionth milestone was overcome at the end of the 18th or beginning of the 19th century. The vast majority of Koreans, approximately 96-98%, then lived in villages. The population of Seoul, as far as we can judge now, during the five centuries of the Ly dynasty fluctuated between 100 and 150 thousand people. It was, of course, the largest city in Korea, because the population of even the largest provincial cities in those days did not exceed 10 thousand. Already in our century, in 1918, Seoul had 189,153 inhabitants, that is, more than six times more than in Kaesong, which, with a population of 27,659 people, was then the second city in the country. It is curious that Pyongyang was then in third place (21,869), in fourth and fifth place were the now completely provincial Sangju and Jeongju, while the current megacities of Busan, Daegu, and Gwangju occupied very modest places: twelfth, sixth, and... thirty sixth respectively.

The first reliable census, that is, organized according to modern scientific methods, was carried out in Korea only in 1910. It gave a result of 17 million 420 thousand people. For comparison, the population of Russia at that time was 160 million people, the USA - 92 million, France - 40 million, China - 450 million. In other words, in 1910, the population of Korea was 9 times less than the Russian population (now it is two times less) and 6 times less than the American population (now it is four times less). In 1945, when Korea was divided into North and South, there were already 28 million people living in it: about 19 million in the South, and about 9 million in the North. This ratio (2:1 in favor of the South) generally remains the same to this day.

Like everywhere else in the world, the population of Korea before the beginning of this century was very young. The birth rate was very high, a woman usually gave birth 7-10 times during her (usually short) life, but about a third of the children died before reaching the age of one, and another third did not live to reach the age of ten. This is not surprising: in the now idealized Tsarist Russia at the end of the last century, according to official data, out of every 1000 newborns, 279 died before reaching one year old! In Korea in 1910, the average life expectancy of men was only... 24 years. Women lived a little longer - 26 years. These numbers seem terribly low to us, but, again, for those times they were quite common. Therefore, the population of Korea, despite the high birth rate, grew very slowly. The high birth rate was “compensated” by the high death rate.

During the colonial era, the situation in Korea improved significantly. New drugs, European medicine and, especially, the spread of modern ideas about hygiene have made many diseases curable - from appendicitis to cholera - that were previously deadly. Therefore, by 1945, the average life expectancy for men was 43, and for women - 44 years, that is, almost two (!) times longer than just three decades earlier.

Generally speaking, the demographic situation in Korea in 1920-1960. was very similar to what now exists in Africa or the Middle East: during this time, the birth rate remained high, but the death rate declined rapidly. The result was rapid population growth. Over the past century, Korea's population has quadrupled, much of it happening in just 15 years: 1945-1960! For comparison: over the same century, the population of France increased by 1.4 times, Spain - by 2.0 times, Germany - by 1.2 times, Japan - by 1.9 times.

In the sixties, the rate of population growth caused considerable concern in Korea, then a poor country. The authorities even launched a birth control campaign at that time, although not as active as in present-day China. However, the best solution to problems, as always happens, was not loud slogans, posters and persistent calls for civic consciousness, but the economic development of the country. As living standards and education levels increased, the birth rate in Korea began to decline rapidly, very quickly. This happens always and everywhere: contrary to popular ideas in modern Russia, the better people live in a particular country, the fewer children they have, as a rule. In just two decades, Korea has transformed from a typical developing country into a typical highly developed country: with low birth rates, low deaths, and high life expectancy. In 1995, Korean men lived on average 70.4 years and Korean women lived 78 years, three times longer than just a century ago.

However, there is a downside to this new model. Like most developed countries, today in Korea even simple reproduction of the population is not ensured. Nowadays, a Korean woman has an average of 1.8 children. Given that most married women in Korea do not work, they no longer want to have as many children as their mothers or grandmothers had. This is understandable. In the old days, children, especially sons, were a guarantee of a secure old age. In addition, in peasant families (that is, in 9/10 of all families), children began to work at the age of 10-11, and their labor contribution to the family budget could be very significant. Now the situation has changed. Children’s education is very expensive, they start working very late, and many ways to provide for themselves in old age have appeared.

It is clear that in order for the population to remain at a more or less stable level, on average there should be a little more than two births per woman. This situation, for example, exists in the United States, where on average a woman has 2.1 children. However, among developed countries, the United States, with its cult of family and “family values,” is an exception, while Korea, with its 1.8 children per family, is much more typical. The population of Korea, however, continues to grow, but this is happening solely due to the continuing increase in life expectancy and the constant decrease in mortality to this day.

In 1998, the population of South Korea was 46 million 440 thousand people. Data on the population of the North are not very reliable, but it is most likely around 23-24 million. If you count both northerners and southerners, then Korea is in 12th place in the world in terms of population. Even if we talk about South Korea alone, then it is not the smallest country: South Korea with its 46 million inhabitants is in approximately the same “weight category” as England (57 million), Poland (38 million), France (58 million), Spain (40 million).

Over the next 10 years, 80% of G20 countries will face unprecedented population declines that will profoundly change the global economy. Developed economies are literally on their way to extinction, while less developed economies grow like weeds.

UN population forecasts are too optimistic and have little in common with reality. Extremely low fertility rates in industrialized countries contradict UN forecasts.

The South Korean government's forecast shows that within 7 years the country's population will begin to decline and if this trend continues, the country's population will simply die out in the future.

South Korea's demographic collapse coincides with China's, and Japan's population is already declining. The world's second, third and eleventh largest economies will see their workforce and consumer base become smaller and smaller, but renowned analysts see no problem with this. Typically, the working-age population, which produces and consumes the most, begins to decline 10 years earlier.

The country with the most homogeneous population and Asia's 4th largest economy is about to decline. South Korea has the world's lowest birth rate (16 years in a row), resulting in a rapidly aging population. 2016 saw the lowest birth rate in 7 years.

Although the population grew rapidly from 1946, it began to decline in 1966 due to the birth control program.

Urbanization, availability of higher education, and increased participation of women in the labor force have affected the population size. As in many cultures, in South Korean culture, male descendants are very important to the principle of family continuity, as they provided financial support and took care of their parents in old age, so everyone strived to have sons.

If the first child was not a boy, it was necessary to produce as many children as needed until a son was born. In 1973, a law on selective abortion was passed, but, as it turned out, there were abuses of the law in the event that a woman was pregnant with a female child.

Overall, the population has increased in most provinces. Then the government intervened, introducing the slogan “It is better to give birth to one child and give him a full education.” In 2016, the total population of South Korea was more than 51 million people, 1 million were foreigners.

Any demographic forecast predicts a sharp decline in population. In 2050 there will probably be 40-48 million Koreans, and in 2100 there will be about 20 million.

All these social phenomena and government measures contribute to a decrease in the birth rate of the country's population and its aging. Although population growth in Korea will likely continue for several years, it will soon begin to decline rapidly, so that by 2750 the population of South Korea will simply die out.

By 2045, Korea could become the oldest country in the world: the average age of residents here will be 50 years. The population pyramid has begun to expand, which means that the number of older people is increasing, while the number of young people and children is decreasing.

In 2016-2017 For the first time, there was a decline in the working-age population aged 15-64 years, which means that consumption levels in Korea have begun to decline. Now people aged 65 years make up 14.12% of society, and those aged 0-14 years make up only 13.21%.

It is likely that in less than 50 years, the number of elderly people will reach more than 40% of the total population of South Korea.

Some of the reasons for Korea's low birth rate are similar to those in Japan in the early 1990s. Couples are reluctant to have a large family due to the high cost of living, including housing and education. South Koreans have the longest working hours in the world, so they don't have time to start a family.

At the same time, there is a high level of unemployment among young people. Women do not want to have children at an early stage of life, preferring to build a career, not being able to get maternity leave, and faced with low levels of male participation in raising children and doing housework. On average, women have their first child at age 31. Many people don't feel the need to start a family.

Low birth rates are not the only problem in South Korea: mortality is another problem. South Korea is one of the countries with the highest suicide rates in the world. 40 Koreans commit suicide every day. This problem very often affects older people.

Half of people aged 65 live in relative poverty, and 1/4 of them live alone. They haven't saved for retirement. They can't find work, and levels of isolation and depression are rising in an aging society.

Among young people, the most common cause of suicide is stress in the workplace and in the education system. 40% of suicides are committed under the influence of alcohol: South Korea is the world's largest consumer of strong alcoholic beverages.

On average, there are 14 suicides per week in this country (compared to three in the United States). Koreans feel overwhelming shame about the psychological problems they experience, yet they are reluctant to undergo appropriate treatment.

Alcohol abuse is considered a more acceptable option here than trying to seek help from a specialist in solving the problem. This undoubtedly contributes to a large number of suicides.

The demographic situation will negatively affect South Korea's economic growth. Seoul, whose residents make up 20% of the entire nation, will feel the biggest change in its population structure: its workforce will shrink. Seoul's population is expected to decline by at least 1 million people by 2040. Already throughout the country, healthcare costs have increased (from 3.8% to 7.2% of GDP).

Economists have suggested that the best option for Japan and Korea may be to end gender discrimination and bring more women into the workforce. Of course, Wall Street economists know that these policies have led to lower birth rates in Europe. Still, financial analysts in New York are desperately looking for ways to expand the workforce in the world's most productive countries.

Korean President Moon Jae-in attaches great importance to the elderly, who now make up the majority of society, and notes the need to create suitable living conditions for such a large population group. As life expectancy has increased, it is worth creating jobs for this age group, especially as the labor force declines.

The president's plan is to raise pensions, double the number of jobs for older workers, increase monthly wages, fund Alzheimer's and dementia care, and make social housing more affordable for seniors.

The South Korean government needs help getting more robots into households. A good solution to the demographic crisis in South Korea would be reunification with North Korea, where the population situation looks more stable. The homogeneity of the race will be preserved, although for now this seems unrealistic.

The situation of South Korea, the world's 11th largest economy and 5th exporter, will affect many countries. It is a global manufacturer of phones, integrated circuits, automobiles, automotive parts, LCD displays and petroleum products, focusing on technology and design. In terms of trade relations, circumstances in South Korea will have the greatest impact on China, the US, Japan, Germany, Australia and Saudi Arabia.

The demographic crisis will also affect the country's security. This will change the geopolitical balance as Japan and South Korea are extensions of the US military in East Asia.

The future of South Korea is extremely uncertain. And there is very little time left to avoid the worst. However, some analysts predict that a downward trend is inevitable.

First of all, let’s indicate where Seoul is located. This is a huge metropolis located on and is the capital of South Korea. This city is one of the largest cities in the world. The official name of the country is the Republic of Korea. This democratic state was formed in the summer of 1945 after the division of spheres of influence on the Korean Peninsula. According to the agreement, this part of the peninsula came under the jurisdiction of the United States, and its northern part came under the influence of the USSR. Today the South consists of 9 provinces with different populations. And Seoul is the most densely populated point in the country.

Population

• the group of children under 15 years old makes up 15.7% of the total number;
• group of people of working age from 15 to 65 - 72.9%;
• in the group of people over 65 years old - 11.4% of the population.

The natural increase for this year, according to calculations, should be more than 184 thousand people. If the level of external migrants remains the same, then the increase will increase by more than 61 thousand people, since more people are arriving in the country than leaving it.

The alarming rate of aging

Seoul's population is rapidly aging. Experts attribute this phenomenon to increased life expectancy and decreased birth rates. Over the past 10 years, the number of young people has been declining, but the number of older people is growing. If this trend continues until 2030, more than 3 million residents in the South Korean capital will be over 65 years of age. By this time, Seoul may take 8th place in the ranking of “aging” cities in the world.

Statistics recorded that in 2013, Seoul, whose population was more than 9 million, had approximately 11% of the “aged” population. It is estimated that by 2019 this figure could rise to 14.3%, and by 2030 it will be 31% of society. Young people, who will bear the burden of supporting pensioners, will be under great pressure. This can reduce the standard of living.

To avoid an aging society, authorities and employers must develop a global strategy aimed at increasing the birth rate.

A little about currency

The currency of Seoul (Republic of Korea) is the Korean won. This currency unit consists of 100 chon. The South Korean won was introduced into circulation in 1962, and since 1980 it has been firmly tied to the dollar exchange rate. Since South Korea is an economically developed state, the population has a fairly high income level. A large percentage of the population works in the shipbuilding and engineering industries. Based on purchasing power parity, South Korea is 13th in the world ranking.

Seoul's currency is officially abbreviated KRW and its international symbol is ₩.

Character traits

Koreans are hardworking people. They work hard and enjoy it. For young people, a career is the main priority. This, among other things, is associated with the low birth rate in the country.

Tourists cannot always correctly assess the character of Seoul residents. It seems to them that everyone around them is closed and unfriendly. In fact, the population of Seoul does not have the habit of publicly expressing their emotions. They consider this a sign of bad manners. To understand the soul of a resident of a country, you need to gain his trust and become a friend.

The Korean culture of communication also has its own traditions:

• South Koreans do not shout at each other, do not show offence, and do not discuss their enemies behind their backs. They are sure that all these are signs of weakness.
• The best dishes are always prepared for guests. Respect for the guest is another important feature of the national character.
• South Koreans respect old age. They never argue with their elders, even when they are wrong. The younger one must remain silent.

Residents of the Republic of Korea are patriots of their country. They stand up for it and are always ready to help their fellow citizens anywhere in the world. If a tourist speaks disrespectfully about South Korea, he is deeply insulting to everyone who hears him.