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Abstract and keywords
Abstract: this paper examines the change in the working-age population share in South Korea from 2000 to 2025. The study focuses on the population aged 15–64 as a demographic indicator of potential labour supply and asks how fertility decline, cohort ageing, longevity and migration contributed to the movement of this indicator. The research is based on demographic transition theory and the cohort-component approach. Methodologically, the paper uses descriptive statistics, demographic decomposition and qualitative interpretation of socio-economic conditions. The decomposition is based on a simple accounting identity: the working-age population share equals 100% minus the share of children aged 0–14 and the share of people aged 65 and above.
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Introduction
South Korea has entered a demographic stage in which population structure itself becomes a central economic and political constraint. For several decades, the country was mainly discussed as a case of rapid industrialisation, export-led growth, technological upgrading, and successful integration into the global economy. However, by the early twenty-first century, the same country began to face a different type of structural challenge: the gradual narrowing of the population base that supports production, taxation, social insurance, military manpower, and intergenerational redistribution. The issue is not only that the total population is ageing. More specifically, the share of people in the working-age group is declining, while the share of older people is expanding. According to World Bank data presented by FRED, the proportion of people aged 15–64 in South Korea decreased from 72.06% in 2020 to 70.16% in 2024, while the proportion of people aged 65 and above increased from 15.82% to 19.27% over the same period.
The relevance of this research is determined by the fact that the decline in the working-age population share is not a narrow demographic statistic. It changes the conditions under which the Korean economy can maintain growth, finance public spending, recruit labour, sustain the pension system, and support regional development. A society may adapt to population ageing if productivity, employment participation, migration, and social policy change fast enough. Yet South Korea’s case is especially complex because ageing is combined with very low fertility. The total fertility rate fell to 0.721 children per woman in 2023 and remained extremely low at 0.748 in 2024. Even though the number of births increased in 2024 compared with 2023, official Korean statistics still show that the country remains far below the replacement level needed for long-term population stability.
The academic significance of the topic lies in the need to explain the decline of the working-age population share not as a simple consequence of “low birth rates,” but as the result of several interacting mechanisms. Fertility decline reduces the size of new cohorts entering the labour market after a time lag. Rising life expectancy and the ageing of large older cohorts increase the share of the population above working age. Migration can partly compensate for labour shortages, but it does not automatically change the national age structure on a sufficient scale. Labour market conditions, housing costs, gender inequality in care responsibilities, education expenses, and delayed marriage also influence family formation and fertility behaviour. The OECD notes that Korea’s fertility rate has fallen to the lowest in the world and that the old-age dependency ratio is expected to increase faster than in any other OECD country, placing pressure on labour supply and public finances.
The geographical framework of this paper is South Korea. The choice of this case is justified by the exceptional speed of demographic ageing in a country that remains one of the most economically advanced states in East Asia. South Korea is also important because its demographic transformation has occurred after a period of rapid economic modernisation, urbanisation, educational expansion, and changes in family behaviour. The chronological framework covers the period from 2000 to 2025. The lower boundary is chosen because the early 2000s mark the beginning of a period when low fertility and ageing became increasingly visible in South Korean demographic statistics and public debate. The upper boundary, 2025, is selected because it allows the paper to examine the most recent stage of the demographic shift, including the period when the decline in the working-age population share became a direct policy concern. Where final 2025 data are not yet available for some indicators, the paper relies on the latest confirmed statistical observations and official projections.
The object of the research is the demographic structure of South Korea’s population in the twenty-first century. The subject of the research is the set of demographic and socio-economic factors that contributed to the decline in the share of the working-age population in South Korea from 2000 to 2025. The working-age population is understood in this paper as people aged 15–64, which is the standard demographic definition used in many international statistical databases. This definition is useful for cross-country comparison, although it has limitations: not every person aged 15–64 is economically active, and some people aged 65 and above remain employed. Therefore, the paper treats the working-age population share as a demographic indicator of potential labour supply, not as a direct measure of actual employment.
The existing literature on South Korea’s demographic change can be divided into several groups. The first group focuses on demographic transition and population ageing, explaining how societies move from high fertility and high mortality to low fertility and long life expectancy. The second group examines ultra-low fertility in East Asia and highlights the role of delayed marriage, high education costs, housing pressure, labour market insecurity, and gendered expectations within the family. The third group studies the economic consequences of ageing, including pension sustainability, healthcare spending, labour shortages, and slower potential growth. The fourth group considers possible policy responses, such as family support, childcare expansion, parental leave, immigration, female labour force participation, and the extension of working lives. These studies provide a strong foundation for understanding the Korean case, but they often treat fertility, ageing, labour markets, and migration separately.
The research gap addressed in this paper is connected with the need to bring these explanations together around one measurable outcome: the decline in the working-age population share. Many studies explain why fertility is low or why the elderly population is growing, but fewer studies show how these processes jointly reshape the age structure over a specific historical period. This paper therefore focuses not only on individual demographic indicators, but also on the mechanism by which they interact. The central idea is that the decline in the working-age population share is produced by the simultaneous narrowing of younger cohorts, the ageing of earlier cohorts, and the limited compensatory effect of migration and policy responses.
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References
1. Anderson, Thomas, and Hans-Peter Kohler. “Education Fever and the East Asian Fertility Puzzle: A Case Study of Low Fertility in South Korea.” Asian Population Studies 9, no. 2 (2013): 196–215. DOI: 10.1080/17441730.2013.797293.
2. Cheng, Yen-hsin Alice. “Ultra-low Fertility in East Asia: Confucianism and Its Discontents.” Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 18, no. 1 (2020): 83–120.
3. Dorflinger, Markus, and Elke Loichinger. “Fertility decline, changes in age structure, and the potential for demographic dividends: A global analysis.” Demographic Research 50, no. 9 (2024): 221–290. DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2024.50.9.
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