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Women outnumbered men in Korea last year for the first time since its liberation from colonial rule, a census conducted by the National Statistical Office finds.
The country is also rapidly aging as its birthrate hit a record low. The number of people over 65 reached the 4 million mark to account for some 10 percent of the population, while the number of children under five fell 23.9 percent during the last five years.
Korea¡¯s population stood at 47,278,952 as of Nov. 1 last year, a 2.5 percent increase or 1.14 million from 2000, the NSO announced Thursday.
The data show that the number of women stood at 23.65 million, outnumbering men (23.62 million) by 30,000. This is the first time since 1944 that Korea registered more women than men in the five-yearly census.
The phenomenon is attributed to a weakening of traditional perceptions that favor sons over daughters and the increasing number of elderly women, the NSO says.
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Brochures advertising the 2005 Census./Courtesy of the National Statistical Office
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By age groups, the number of people over 65 rose 29.4 percent to 4.36 million from five years ago, increasing their proportion in the population from 7.3 percent in 2000 to 9.3 percent in 2005. By contrast, the number of those under 15 slid 6.7 percent to 8.98 million, decreasing in proportion from 21 percent to 19.1 percent.
The census showed the aging index -- calculated by dividing the number of people over 65 by the number of teenagers and younger -- rose as much as 13.6 percentage points over the last five years to reach 48.6 percent.
¡°The nation has been moving toward a jar-shaped population graph since 1985, where the number of teenagers and younger declines while that of the elderly increases,¡± said Chun Shin-ae, the director of the NSO's social statistics division.
Other demographic trends include that people are getting married late and an increase in the number of singles, evidenced by the fact that the proportion of unmarried people in their late 20s and early 30s increased 14.9 percent and 10.7 percent from 2000, Chun added.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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