Signal Korean audit projects most local governments at high risk of extinction by 2067

Summary

Korea's situation is described as similar to Japan's or even more serious and urgent, with 226 basic local governments as of December 2023 after administrative restructuring since the mid-1990s. In July 2021 the Board of Audit and Inspection published an audit report on responses to demographic change that calculated extinction risk in a way similar to Japan's Population Strategy Council. Its extinction risk index divides the number of women aged 20 to 39 by the population aged 65 and over, grading 0.5 to 1.0 as caution, 0.2 to 0.5 as entering risk and below 0.2 as high risk. Only 12 municipalities, or 5.2 percent, were at high risk in 2017, but as ageing advances on current trends 157, or 68.6 percent, would be at risk of extinction by 2047, and by 2067 all but 13 areas, 216 cities, counties and districts or about 94.3 percent, would reach the high-risk stage. The audit attributes the acceleration to young people moving to the capital region in search of quality education and jobs, and to rising non-marriage and late marriage amid excessive competition and anxiety about the future.