Aging, women, mobile phones, expats

These four dominant features define today’s Korean society

By Kim Tong-hyung

Workers will increasingly struggle to cope with the financial challenges posed by Korea’s aging population, a government report suggested Monday.

The graying population appears to be a ticking time-bomb for the economy as the ratio of workers to pensioners is expected to dramatically decline in the coming decades, putting employees under greater financial pressure.

Statistics Korea, the national office of statistics, said that 15 percent of the National Pension Fund subscribers were receiving pensions in 2009, a sharp increase from the 1.3 percent in 1989.

Although estimating the true cost of an aging population is a complicated matter, as people are also staying healthier for longer, a greater number of older people likely means more pressure on healthcare services. The aging population will balloon in years ahead, and by 2050, there will be 1.4 workers for every retired person, Statistics Korea predicted.

``The changing demographics will impose greater weight on the government budget and taxpayers will have to pay more. The financial challenge will be evident for families, as workers will have to cope with taking care of their parents long after they retired,’’ said Seo Kyung-sook, a Statistics Korea official who authored the report.

More than 14 percent of Korea’s population is 65 or older, after exceeding 7 percent in 2000. The average life expectancy of Koreans stood at 80.5 years in 2009, compared to 65.7 in 1980.

Of the country’s total healthcare expenditure 30.5 percent was used on people above 65 in 2009, the first time the figure broke the 30 percent threshold and marked a significant increase from 17 percent in 1999.

Alarmed by a rapidly skidding birthrate, the government has been scrambling to introduce new measures to encourage couples to have more children. However, critics say that the country will struggle to cope with labor market and welfare state problems unless it converts to positive immigration policies and provides better schemes to lure more skilled workers.

The Statistics Korea report also showed that Korea’s women outnumbered men last year, for the first time since the country began a census in 1925.

The country’s total population was tentatively measured at 48.21 million in 2010, which would represent just a 2 percent increase from 2005; the annual growth rate has been declining every year for a decade. The 24.17 million women accounted for 50.1 percent of the population last year, compared to 24.04 million men.

However, Korea still has much room for improvement in taking advantage of the talents of women in its workforce, the report suggested. Women accounted for 49.4 percent of the country’s economically active population in 2010, compared to 48.8 percent in 2000. But female workers earned just over 63 percent of what their male counterparts took home in 2009. Childcare seems to lock women to lower-paid and lower-status jobs, Statistics Korea said, as does work-related gender prejudice.

The number of foreign expatriates here reached 919,000 in 2010, an 18-fold increase from the 1990 figure, with the country becoming more internationally integrated in business.

The report showed the average size of families shrinking, with those living alone accounting for more than 23 percent of all households in 2010, compared to just 9 percent in 1990. There were 326,000 marriages last year, a 5.3 percent increase from 2009, and 117,000 divorces, which dropped 5.7 percent year-on-year.

According to the report, 79 percent of high school students extended their education at colleges last year, a 2.9 percent decline from 2009. About 80.5 percent of female high school students went to college compared to 77.6 percent among male students.

The country’s advancement in technology appears to have brought significant changes to living habits. About 33.5 percent of the total population had high-speed Internet access in 2009, up from just 8.2 percent in 2000.

The ubiquity of broadband access has jolted electronic commerce and spawned a new industry in online financial services.

The money moved via electronic commerce sites reached 25.2 trillion won in 2010, 4.5 trillion won more than the year before, while the number of online bank accounts reached 66 million, representing a 16-fold increase from the 4.09 million in 2000.

Korea now appears to have more mobile phones than people. The mobile phone customers of Korea’s three wireless carriers, SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus, came to 50.7 million as of last year, representing more than a 500-fold increase from 1990.