'Due to Housing Price Burden'... Seoul Population Experiences Net Outflow for 1 Year and 7 Months

Statistics Korea September Domestic Population Movement

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Son Seon-hee] Seoul's population has been declining for 1 year and 7 months since March last year. The overall domestic population movement also decreased for 9 consecutive months.

According to the 'September Domestic Population Movement' report released by Statistics Korea on the 27th, the number of movers last month was 566,000, down 8.9% (55,000 people) compared to a year ago. This marks a decrease for 9 consecutive months this year.

Among the total movers, 64.3% (364,000 people) moved within the same city or province, while 35.7% (202,000 people) moved between cities or provinces. The population movement rate last month (number of movers per 100 people) was 13.4%, down 1.3 percentage points from a year ago.

Eight cities and provinces including Gyeonggi (12,510 people), Incheon (3,231 people), and Sejong (1,045 people) experienced net population inflow, whereas nine cities and provinces including Seoul (-8,119 people), Gyeongnam (-2,567 people), and Jeonnam (-2,078 people) experienced net population outflow.

Kim Soo-young, head of the Population Trends Division at Statistics Korea, explained, "Population movement is decreasing due to population aging," and added, "The continued decline in population movement this year is also largely due to the base effect from the significant increase in population movement last year."

He further noted, "Housing transactions have decreased as the volume of housing sales from July to August dropped by 21.5% compared to a year ago, and the number of apartments scheduled for occupancy from August to September decreased by 28.2%, which also had an impact."

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