One in Three Houses is a 'Single-Person Household'... 4 out of 10 Workers in Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Earn Less Than 1 Million Won per Month

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwangho Lee] It has been revealed that nationwide, one out of every three households is a single-person household. Among them, 4 out of 10 workers employed in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries earn less than 1 million won per month.

According to the "2019 Second Half Regional Employment Survey: Dual-Income Households and Single-Person Household Employment Status" released by Statistics Korea on the 23rd, as of last year in September, there were 6,039,000 single-person households, accounting for 29.9% of the total 20,183,000 households. This is an increase of 251,000 households (0.7 percentage points) compared to the previous year.

The number of employed persons among single-person households was 3,671,000, an increase of 134,000 households (3.8%) compared to the previous year.

By gender, single-person households consisted of 2,081,000 male households (56.7%) and 1,589,000 female households (43.3%).

By age group, employed single-person households were highest among those aged 50?64 at 1,012,000 households (27.6%), followed by 30?39 years at 830,000 households (22.6%), 40?49 years at 715,000 households (19.5%), 15?29 years at 687,000 households (18.7%), and 65 years and older at 427,000 households (11.6%).

Compared to 2018, the 50?64 and 65+ age groups increased by 1.0 percentage point and 0.8 percentage points respectively, while the 40?49, 30?39, and 15?29 age groups decreased by 1.1, 0.4, and 0.3 percentage points respectively.

By education level, single-person households with college graduates or higher accounted for 1,662,000 households (45.3%), high school graduates 1,334,000 households (36.4%), and middle school graduates or below 675,000 households (18.4%).

Among employed single-person households, 79.3% were wage workers (2,912,000 households), and 20.7% were non-wage workers (759,000 households).

The average weekly working hours for these workers was 40.3 hours, with men working 42.7 hours and women 37.2 hours on average.

Regarding wage levels of wage workers, 11.7% earned less than 1 million won, 21.3% earned between 1 million and less than 2 million won, 36.0% earned between 2 million and less than 3 million won, 18.8% earned between 3 million and less than 4 million won, and 12.2% earned 4 million won or more.

By industry, agriculture, forestry, and fisheries had a high proportion (39.6%) earning less than 1 million won, whereas mining and manufacturing, construction, wholesale and retail trade, accommodation and food services, electricity, transportation, communication, finance, and business, personal, and public services had higher proportions earning between 2 million and less than 3 million won at 41.9%, 36.2%, 38.2%, 37.0%, and 32.7% respectively.

The proportion of single-person households by region exceeded the national average (29.9%) in Jeollanam-do (32.8%), Gangwon-do (33.7%), Daejeon (33.2%), and Gyeongsangbuk-do (22.1%). The employment rate of single-person households was above the national average (60.8%) in Chungcheongnam-do (67.6%), Sejong (65.2%), and Gyeonggi-do (64.5%). Busan, Daegu, and Jeollabuk-do were below the average.

Dual-income couples accounted for 4,662,000 households (46.0%) out of the total 12,305,000 married couples, a decrease of 13,000 households (-0.2%) compared to the previous year.

By age group of household heads, dual-income households were highest among those aged 40?49 at 54.2%, followed by 30?39 years at 50.2%, and 50?64 years at 50.1%.

The average weekly working hours for dual-income couples were 44.0 hours for men and 38.1 hours for women, decreasing by 0.8 hours and 0.9 hours respectively compared to the previous year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.