A Quarter of Korean Households Are Single

The number of single-person homes now exceeds 4 million to account for 23.3 percent of Korea's population, according to the latest census revealed by Statistics Korea on Tuesday. This is partly due to an increasing number of senior citizens living by themselves as well as a burgeoning population of unmarried men and women.

Single-person homes accounted for a mere 4.8 percent of households in 1980, rising to 9 percent in 1990 and 20 percent in 2005, when the last census took place.

The population stands at 48.22 million, an increase of around 940,000 people or 2 percent from 2005 and the world's 26th largest population. The total of households is 17.33 million, up 1.45 million or 9.1 percent over the same period. Statistics Korea said the reason the number of households grew much faster than the population is because there are more single-person homes and the birthrate remains low. 

Meanwhile, the number of registered citizens stood at 50.5 million as of November, but that includes millions of students and workers registered here but living abroad, whom the census did not count.

At the time of the 2005 census, around 1.17 million Korean citizens lived overseas. The final results of the 2010 census will be announced in May.