The population in South Korea’s capital city Seoul is expected to drop below 10 million threshold next year amid fast aging, with the number of people aged over 65 accounting for more than 14 percent.

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government on Tuesday, the city’s total population reached 10,049,607 as of late last year as it continued to become thinner from 2010. The number of Korean residents in the capital city has been on a steady decline while that of foreign nationals residing in the city increased more than six times from 45,000 in 1995 to 284,000 in 2018.

The city government said the number of residents in Seoul is expected to dip below 10 million at the end of this year or in the first half of next year, considering the net migration number – the number of residents who moved out of the city minus the number of people who moved into the city - averaged at above 80,000 per year over the past three years.

The biggest factor driving the recent decline is a large number of people flowing out to near cities in Gyeonggi Province. Among the total 570,000 people who moved out of the city last year, the largest number of 135,216 moved to Gyeonggi Province, while Gyeongsang Province sent the biggest number of 25,321 people to Seoul among the total 460,000 moving into the city.

In addition, Seoul has become officially aged, with the number of people aged over 65 amounting to 1.41 million and accounting for 14.4 percent of total population as of late last year. It became an aging society in 2005 after the elderly population passed 7 percent share. The city government expected Seoul would become a super-aged society in 2026 in which the proportion reaches above 20 percent.

Natural population increase in Seoul, which refers to the difference between the number of births and deaths, has also been falling steadily due to the plunging birth rate. The number of new-born babies plummeted from 145,000 in 1992 to 13,000 in 2018, while the number of deaths slightly increased.

By Choi Hyun-jae and Choi Mira

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]