Korea Just a Few Years Away from Becoming 'Super-Aged Society'

The number of senior citizens in Korea exceeded 9 million for the first time this year.

Statistics Korea said on Thursday that people aged 65 and older totaled 9.02 million as of July, up 5.2 percent on-year, accounting for 17.5 percent of the country's population.

The agency projected that seniors will account for 20.6 percent of the population -- making Korea a super-aged society -- by 2025. At that pace, it will have taken only seven years for the country to go from an aged society to a super-aged society. Korea became an aged society in 2018 with an elderly population of 14.4 percent.

That means Korea will make the transition in a shorter period of time than other advanced economies such as Japan (10 years), the U.S. (15 years) and the U.K. (50 years).

Data also show that a whopping 65 percent of elderly people are working to make ends meet without depending on their children, and 54.7 percent want to continue working to cover their living expenses.