Korea Comes Full Circle in One Generation as Aging Crisis Looms
Elderly men sit on benches at Tapgol Park in Seoul, South Korea. Photographer: Woohae Cho/Bloomberg
It’s only twenty years ago that South Korea was so intent on population control that getting sterilized put young couples on the fast track for public housing. Even the army was in on the act, offering a free pass from annual military training to any man willing to shuffle off for a vasectomy.
In the space of a generation, everything has changed. Korea’s population is aging rapidly and its workforce is shrinking. The number of people aged 15 to 64 will peak at 37 million next year, and then steadily drop. After the rapid gains in efficiency that saw the rise of industrial powerhouses like Hyundai Motor Co. and Samsung Electronics Co., improvements in labor productivity are also getting harder to find.