한국인 평균연령 42세 돌파...인구 증가율 0.1%이하 기록

The population growth rate for South Korea has been decreasing year after year.
And with the number of elderly people still going up, the nation's average age is higher than ever before.
Seo Bo-bin zooms in on this concerning trend.
As of end of last year, the average age of South Korea's 50 million residents exceeded 42 for the first time since such statistics were first published.
According to the statistics released by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, population growth fell to just 0-point-09 percent, marking the lowest percentage increase since annual population data was first published in 2008.
The population growth rate had risen from 0.47 percent in 2009 to 1.49 percent in 2010, but since then it has been steadily decreasing and in 2017 it hit 0.16 percent, before dropping even further last year.
Compared to 2017, the number of people in their 40s or younger decreased in 2018 while those in their 50s or older increased. The population aged 0~9 only accounted for 49.9% of those in their 50s, the first time it has dropped below 50%.
Over seven million people, or 15% of the total population, were aged 65 or older last year, which is an increase of 2-hundred-90-thousand people from the previous year.
Seo Bo-bin, Arirang News.