Demographics of South Korea

From New World Encyclopedia

The Korea people are the most homogeneous people on earth. They come the closest to a pure race of any people. Although many nations have invaded and occupied Korea, and some have left their genetic marks, for the most part Koreans have maintained their racial purity. Although racial purity is one reason the Korean people have survived as a nation until today, that is not the fundamental reason. The fundamental reason for the survival and prosperity of the Korean people in the face of numerous challenges lies in their cultural heritage, their religious and philosophical traditions.

Background

Percentages of Kim Li Park clans in South Korea

Although a variety of different Asian peoples had migrated to the Korean Peninsula in past centuries, few have remained permanently, so by 1990 both South Korea and North Korea numbered among the world's most ethnically homogeneous nations. The indigenous minorities population amounted to negligible number. In South Korea, people of foreign origin, including Westerners, Chinese, and Japanese, amounted to a small percentage of the population who generally resided in the country temporarily.

Like their Japanese neighbors, Koreans tend to equate nationality or citizenship with membership in a single, homogeneous ethnic group or "race" (minjok, in Korean). Koreans view a common language and culture as important elements in Korean identity. The idea of multiracial or multi-ethnic nations, like India or the United States, strikes many Koreans as odd or even contradictory. That consciousness of homogeneity constitutes a major reason why Koreans on both sides of the DMZ viewed their country's division as an unnatural and unnecessary tragedy.

Regional differences

File:Gwangju city - view apts.jpg
A view of Gwangju (in South Korea) that shows one of the world cup stadiums.

Against the background of ethnic homogeneity, however, significant regional differences exist. Within South Korea, the most important regional difference exists between the Gyeongsang region, embracing Gyeongsangbuk-do and Gyeongsangnam-do provinces in the southeast, and the Jeolla region, embracing Jeollabuk-do and Jeollanam-do provinces in the southwest. The two regions, separated by the Jirisan Massif, nurture a rivalry said to reach back to the Three Kingdoms of Korea Period, which lasted from the fourth century to the seventh century C.E., when the kingdoms of Baekje and Silla struggled for control of the peninsula. Observers noted that interregional marriages rarely occur, and that as of 1990 a new four lane highway completed in 1984 between Gwangju and Daegu, the capitals of Jeollanam-do and Gyeongsangbuk-do provinces, have been unsuccessful in promoting travel between the two areas.

South Korea's political elite, including presidents Park Chung Hee, Chun Doo Hwan, and Roh Tae Woo, have come mainly from the Gyeongsang region. As a result, Gyeongsang has been a special beneficiary of government development assistance. By contrast, the Jeolla region has remained comparatively rural, undeveloped, and poor. Chronically disaffected, its people rightly or wrongly have a reputation for rebelliousness. Regional bitterness intensified with the May 1980 Gwangju massacre, in which government troops sent to quell an insurrection killed about 200 and perhaps many more inhabitants of the capital of Jeollanam-do. Many of the troops reportedly hailed from the Gyeongsang region.

Stereotypes

Regional stereotypes, like regional dialects, have been breaking down under the influence of centralized education, nationwide media, and the several decades of population movement since the Korean War. Stereotypes remain important in the eyes of many South Koreans. For example, Koreans tend to describe the people of Gyeonggi-do, surrounding Seoul, as cultured, and Chungcheong people, inhabiting the region embracing Chungcheongbuk-do and Chungcheongnam-do provinces, mild-mannered, manifesting true yangban virtues. The people view those from Gangwon-do in the northeast as poor and stolid, while Koreans perceive those from the northern provinces (now in North Korea) of Pyongan, Hwanghae, and Hamgyong as diligent and aggressive. Jeju Island is famous for its strong-minded and independent women.

Population trends

The population of South Korea has grown rapidly since the republic's establishment in 1948.

In the first official census, taken in 1949, the government numbered the total population of South Korea at 20,188,641 people while the census of 1985 number 40,466,577. Population growth slowed, averaging about 1.1 percent annually during the period from 1949 to 1955, when the population registered at 21.5 million. Growth accelerated between 1955 and 1966 to 29.2 million or an annual average of 2.8 percent, but declined significantly during the period 1966 to 1985 to an annual average of 1.7 percent. Thereafter, the population grew at an estimated annual rate of less than 1 percent, similar to the low growth rates of most industrialized countries and to the target figure set by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs for the 1990s. As of January 1, 1989, demographers estimated the population of South Korea at approximately 42.2 million.

Namdaemun Market Scene

The proportion of the total population under fifteen years of age has risen and fallen with the growth rate. In 1955 children under fifteen years of age comprised approximately 41.2 percent of the population, a percentage that rose to 43.5 percent in 1966 before falling to 38.3 percent in 1975, 34.2 percent in 1980, and 29.9 percent in 1985. In the past, the large proportion of children relative to the total population put great strains on the country's economy, particularly because the government invested substantial resources in education facilities. With the slowdown in the population growth rate and a rise in the median age (from 18.7 years to 21.8 years between 1960 and 1980), the age structure of the population has begun to resemble the columnar pattern typical of developed countries, rather than the pyramidal pattern found in most parts of the Third World.

The decline in the population growth rate and in the proportion of people under fifteen years of age after 1966 reflected the success of official and unofficial birth control programs. The government of President Syngman Rhee (1948-60) maintained a conservative policy in child birth. Although Christian churches initiated a family planning campaign in 1957, the initiative had little success. In 1962, the government of Park Chung Hee, alarmed at the way in which the rapidly increasing population undermining economic growth, began a nationwide family planning program. Other factors that contributed to a slowdown in population growth included urbanization, later marriage ages for both men and women, higher education levels, a greater number of women in the labor force, and better health standards.

Public and private agencies involved in family planning included the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Planned Parenthood Federation of Korea, and the Korea Institute of Family Planning. In the late 1980s, their activities included distribution of free birth control devices and information, classes for women on family planning methods, and the granting of special subsidies and privileges (such as low-interest housing loans) to parents who agreed to undergo sterilization. In 1984, 502,000 South Koreans underwent sterilization compared with 426,000 in the previous year.

The 1973 Maternal and Child Health Law legalized abortion. In 1983 the government began suspending medical insurance benefits for maternal care for pregnant women with three or more children, denying tax deductions for education expenses to parents with two or more children. As in China, cultural attitudes pose problems for family planning programs. Korean parents have a strong preference for sons—who in Korea's Confucian value system—they expect to care for them in old age and carry on the family name—means that parents with only daughters usually continue to have children until a son is born. The government has encouraged married couples to have only one child, promoting the theme in public service advertising, which stresses "have a single child and raise it well."

Total fertility rates (the average number of births a woman will have during her lifetime) fell from 6.1 births per female in 1960 to 4.2 in 1970, 2.8 in 1980, and 2.4 in 1984. The number of live births, recorded as 711,810 in 1978, grew to a high of 917,860 in 1982. That development stirred apprehensions among family planning experts of a new "baby boom." By 1986, however, the number of live births had declined to 806,041.

Given the size and age structure of the population in 1990, the government expects substantial increases over the next few decades. According to the government's Economic Planning Board, the country's population will increase to between 46 and 48 million by the end of the twentieth century, with growth rates ranging between 0.9 and 1.2 percent. The Boards expects the population to stabilize by the year 2023 at around 52.6 million people. In the words of Asiaweek magazine, the "stabilized tally will approximate the number of Filipinos in 1983, but squeezed into less than a third of their [the Philippines'] space." Korean mothers gave birth to 452,000 babies in 2006 (BR of 9.22) compared to 438,000 in 2005 (BR of 8.97), making birth rate in South Korea one of the lowest in the world.


Population settlement patterns

South Korea was one of the world's most densely populated countries, with an estimated 425 people per square kilometer in 1989—over sixteen times the average population density of the United States in the late 1980s. By comparison, China had an estimated 114 people, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) 246 people, and Japan 323 people per square kilometer in the late 1980s. About 70 percent of South Korea's land area mountainous, forcing the population to concentrate in the lowland areas in densities greater than average.

As early as 1975, demographers estimated that the density of South Korea's thirty-five cities, each of which had a population of 50,000 or more inhabitants, at3,700 people per square kilometer. Because of continued migration to urban areas, the figure doubtless rose higher in the late 1980s.

File:Seoul Building63.jpg
Tallest Building in Korea

In 1988 Seoul had a population density of 17,030 people per square kilometer as compared with 13,816 people per square kilometer in 1980. The second largest city, Pusan, had a density of 8,504 people per square kilometer in 1988 as compared with 7,272 people in 1980. Kyonggi Province, which surrounds the capital and contains Inch'on, the country's fourth largest city, weighted in as the most densely populated province; Kangwon Province in the northeast came in as the least densely populated province.

The extreme crowding in South Korea in 1990 proved a major factor not only in economic development and in the standard of living but also in the development of social attitudes and human relationships. More than most other peoples, South Koreans have had to learn to live peacefully with each other in small, crowded spaces, in which the competition for limited resources, including space itself, has been intense. Continued population growth means that the shortage of space for living and working will grow more severe. According to the government's Economic Planning Board, the population density will be 530 people per square kilometer by 2023, the year of expected population stabilization.

Urbanization

Like other newly industrializing economies, South Korea experienced rapid growth of urban areas caused by the migration of large numbers of people from the countryside. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Seoul, by far the largest urban settlement, had a population of about 190,000 people. In striking contrast with Japan, wEdo (Tokyo) had as many as 1 million inhabitants and the urban population comprised as much as 10 to 15 percent of the total during the Tokugawa Period (1600-1868). During the closing years of the Choson Dynasty and the first years of Japanese colonial rule, the urban population of Korea amounted to three percent of the total. After 1930, when the Japanese began industrial development on the Korean Peninsula, particularly in the northern provinces adjacent to Manchuria, the urban portion of the population began to grow, reaching 11.6 percent for all of Korea in 1940.

File:Seoul-Samsungdong-buildings-01.jpg
Seoul Samsungdong Buildings

Between 1945 and 1985, the urban population of South Korea grew from 14.5 percent to 65.4 percent of the total population. In 1988 the Economic Planning Board estimated that the urban portion of the population will reach 78.3 percent by the end of the twentieth century. Demographers attribute most of that urban increase to migration rather than to natural growth of the urban population. Urban birth rates have generally been lower than the national average.

Those statistics fail to fully reveal the extent of urbanization in South Korea. The national census defined urban population as restricted to those municipalities with 50,000 or more inhabitants. Although many settlements with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants satellite towns of Seoul or other large cities or mining communities in northeastern Kangwon Province, which would be considered urban in terms of the living conditions and occupations of the inhabitants, they still were officially classified as rural.

The dislocation caused by the Korean War accounted for the rapid increase in urban population during the early 1950s. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, many of them from North Korea, streamed into the cities. During the post-Korean War period, rural people left their ancestral villages in search of greater economic and educational opportunities in the cities. By the late 1960s, migration had become a serious problem, not only because of terrible overcrowding in the cities, but also because the rural areas lost the most youthful and productive members of their labor force.

In the early 1970s, the Park Chung Hee government launched the Saemaul undong (New Community Movement) as a rural reconstruction and self-help movement to improve economic conditions in the villages, close the wide gap in income between rural and urban areas, and stem urban migration—as well as to build a political base. Despite a huge amount of government sponsored publicity, especially during the Park era, by the late 1980s the Saemaul undong struggled to achieve its objectives. By that time many, if not most, farming and fishing villages consisted of older persons; relatively few able-bodied men and women remained to work in the fields or to fish. That trend became apparent in government statistics for the 1986-87 period: the proportion of people fifty years old or older living in farming communities grew from 28.7 percent in 1986 to 30.6 percent in 1987, while the number of people in their twenties living in farming communities declined from 11.3 percent to 10.8 percent. The nationwide percentages for people fifty years old or older and in their twenties were, in 1986, 14.9 percent and 20.2 percent, respectively.

File:Seoul nighview.jpg
Night View of Seoul

In 1985 Seoul (9,645,932 inhabitants), Pusan (3,516,807), Taegu (2,030,672), Inch'on (1,387,491), Kwangju (906,129), and Taejon (866,695) nnumbered as the largest cities. According to government statistics, the population of Seoul, one of the world's largest cities, surpassed 10 million people in late 1988. During the late 1980s, Seoul's population grew at average annual rate of more than 3 percent. Two-thirds of that growth has been attributed to migration rather than to natural increase. Surveys to determine the major reasons given by new immigrants for coming to the capitalrevealed found "new employment or seeking a new job," "job transfer," and "business" the top reasons. Other factors cited by immigrants included "education" and "a more convenient area to live."

To alleviate overcrowding in Seoul's downtown area, the city government drew up a master plan in the mid-1980s that envisioned the development of four "core zones" by 2000: the original downtown area, Yongdongp'o-Yoido, Yongdong, and Ch'amsil. Satellite towns also would be established or expanded. In the late 1980s, statistics revealed that the daytime or commuter population of downtown Seoul numbered as much as six times the officially registered population. If the master plan proves successful, many commuters will travel to work in a core area nearer their homes, and the downtown area's daytime population will decrease. Many government ministries have been moved out of Seoul, and the army, navy, and air force headquarters have been relocated to Taejon.

In 1985 the population of Seoul constituted 23.8 percent of the national total. Provincial cities, however, experienced equal and, in many cases, greater expansion than the capital. The southeastern coastal region, which encompasses the port cities of Pusan, Masan, Yosu, Chinhae, Ulsan, and P'ohang experienced particularly spectacular growth. Census figures show that Ulsan's population increased eighteenfold, growing from 30,000 to 551,300 inhabitants between 1960 and 1985. All of those cities, with the exception of Yosu, are located in South Kyongsang Province, a region that has been an especially favored recipient of government development projects. By comparison, the population of Kwangju, capital of South Cholla Province, increased less than threefold between 1960 and 1985, growing from 315,000 to 906,129 inhabitants.

Rapid urban growth has brought familiar problems to developed and developing countries alike. The construction of large numbers of high-rise apartment complexes in Seoul and other large cities alleviated housing shortages to some extent. But that also imposed hardship on the tens of thousands of people obliged to relocate from their old neighborhoods because they could not afford the rents in the new buildings. In the late 1980s, squatter areas consisting of one-story shacks still existed in some parts of Seoul. Only the wealthiest enjoyed housing with ample space. The concentration of factories in urban areas, the rapid growth of motorized traffic, and the widespread use of coal for heating during the severe winter months have caused dangerous levels of air and water pollution. Although environmental awareness has increased, a polluted environment will adversely affect the quality of life in the cities for some time to come.

According to a 2006 study completed by the National Statistical Office, South Korea's population will peak at 49.3 million in 2018 and then start to decline due to the country's low birth rate. South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the developed world, with an average of 1.08 children per woman. [1]

Koreans living overseas

Large-scale emigration from Korea began around 1904 and continued until the end of World War II. During the Korea under Japanese rule period, many Koreans emigrated to Manchuria (present-day China's northeastern provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang), other parts of China, the Soviet Union, Hawaii, and the continental United States.

Most emigrated for economic reasons; employment opportunities proved scarce, and many Korean farmers lost their land after the Japanese introduced a system of land registration and private land tenure, imposed higher land taxes, and promoted the growth of an absentee landlord class charging exorbitant rents. Koreans from the northern provinces of Korea went mainly to Manchuria, China, and Siberia. Many people from the southern provinces went to Japan. Koreans found themselves conscripted into Japanese labor battalions or the Japanese army, especially during World War II. In the 1940-44 period, nearly 2 million Koreans lived in Japan, 1.4 million in Manchuria, 600,000 in Siberia, and 130,000 in China. An estimated 40,000 Koreans scattered among other countries. At the end of World War II, approximately 2 million Koreans repatriated from Japan and Manchuria.

File:MWie01.jpg
Michelle Wie waves to her fans

More than 4 million ethnic Koreans lived outside the peninsula during the early 1980s. The largest group, about 1.7 million people, lived in China. Most had assumed Chinese citizenship. The Soviet Union had about 430,000 ethnic Koreans. One observer noted that Koreans had been so successful in running collective farms in Soviet Central Asia that other Soviets often associated being Korean with being rich. By contrast, many of Japan's approximately 700,000 Koreans had below-average standards of living. That situation occurred partly because of discrimination by the Japanese majority and partly because a large number of resident Koreans, loyal to the North Korean regime of Kim Il Sung, preferred to remain separate from and hostile to the Japanese mainstream. The pro-North Korea Chongryon (General Association of Korean Residents in Japan) initially enjoyed greater success than the pro-South Korea Mindan (Association for Korean Residents in Japan) in attracting adherents among residents in Japan. Since Seoul and Tokyo established diplomatic relations in 1965, the South Korean government has taken an active role in promoting the interests of their residents in Japan in negotiations with the Japanese government. The government also has provided subsidies to Korean schools in Japan and other community activities.

By the end of 1988 over 2 million South Korean resided overseas. Koreans preferred North America with 1.2 million immigrating. Korean immigrants in the United States and Canada gained a reputation for hard work and economic success. South Koreans also immigrated to Japan (at least 680,000), Central and South America (85,000), the Middle East (62,000), Western Europe (40,000), other Asian countries (27,000), and Africa (25,000). A small number of South Korean government-sponsored migrants settled in Chile, Argentina, and other Latin American countries. Because of South Korea's rapid economic expansion, an increasing number of its citizens reside abroad temporarily as business executives, technical personnel, foreign students, and construction workers. A small number of overseas South Koreans had migrated back to South Korea primarily because of the much improved economic conditions and the difficulties in adjusting to living abroad.


Ethnic groups

South Korea is a homogeneous society with absolute majority of the population of Korean ethnicity. In 1970, an estimate of 120,000 Chinese resided in South Korea. Due to economic restrictions by the Korean government, the number officially fell to around 21,000 today. The actual number may be higher since many Chinese work and reside in Korea illegally. In a 10-year period starting in the late 1990s the number of Chinese in Korea exploded. Estimates place at least 300,000 and possibly more than 1,000,000 Chinese in Korea fall into categories of Korean-Chinese (조선족), permanent residents and/or illegal Han Chinese (한족)immigrants .[1] A large Chinese community lives in Seoul's Daerim/Namguro area and a smaller but established community in Seongnam. That Chinese-Korean community, known as Hwakyo (화교) by the Koreans, distrusts ordinary Koreans and tend to avoid those unfamiliar to them. Migrant workers from the Philippines and Malaysia live and work and in the main cities, particularly Seoul. A small but growing number of foreigners related to business and education.

The number of marriages between Koreans and foreigners has risen steadily in the past few years. In 2005, South Korea marriages to foreigners accounted for 14 percent of all marriages (about 26,000 marriages). Many Korean agencies encourage 'international' marriages to Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai women, adding a new degree of complexity to the issue of ethnicity. [2] 29,000 United States military personnel serve in Korea.

Languages

A vast majority of the population speak the Korean language. Middle and High Schools require students to study English. Middle school and High school students also begin to study a 2nd foreign language by their second year. Most schools offer Japanese, Chinese, and German, and students can learn basic proficiency. Private academies teach various languages including Mandarin, Japanese, French, German, Russian, Vietnamese, Spanish, and Arabic. Still, a great emphasis is placed on English.

Nationality

noun: Korean(s)
adjective: Korean


Statistics

Year Population (July est.) Growth rate (est.) Age structure (est.)
2007 49,044,790 0.394%
  • 0-14 years: 18.3% (male 4,714,103/female 4,262,873)
  • 15-64 years: 72.1% (male 18,004,719/female 17,346,594)
  • 65 years and over: 9.6% (male 1,921,803/female 2,794,698)
2006 48,846,823 0.42%
  • 0-14 years: 18.9% (male 4,844,083/female 4,368,139)
  • 15-64 years: 71.8% (male 17,886,148/female 17,250,862)
  • 65 years and over: 9.2% (male 1,818,677/female 2,678,914)

Age structure

Growth

  • Birth rate: 10 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)
  • Total fertility rate: 1.08 children born/woman (August 2006 est.)
  • Death rate: 5.85 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.)
  • Infant mortality rate: 6.16 deaths/1,000 live births (2006 est.)
  • Net migration rate: 0 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2006 est.)

Sex ratio

  • at birth: 1.13 male(s)/female
  • under 15 years: 1.12 male(s)/female
  • 15-99 years: 1.03 male(s)/female
  • 65 years and over: 0.63 male(s)/female
  • total population: 1.01 male(s)/female (2000 est.)

Life expectancy

  • total population: 77.04 years
  • male: 73.61 years
  • female: 80.75 years (2006 est.)

Religions

Literacy

  • Definition: age 15 and over can read and write
  • total population: 97.9%
  • male: 99.2%
  • female: 96.6% (2002)
Source: CIA World Factbook 2006

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • This article contains material from the Library of Congress Country Studies, which are United States government publications in the public domain.
  • This article contains material from the CIA World Factbook which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain.
  • Hune, Shirley. 1991. Asian Americans: comparative and global perspectives. Pullman, Wash: Washington State University Press. ISBN: 0874220718 9780874220711
  • Kim, Hyŏng-nae, and Pok Song. 2007. Modern Korean Society: its development and prospect. Korea research monograph, 30. Berkeley, Calif: Center for Korean Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California. ISBN: 9781557290861
  • Sorensen, Clark W. 1988. Over the mountains are mountains: Korean peasant households and their adaptations to rapid industrialization. Korean studies of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN: 9780295965079

See also

External links

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.

  1. Yonhap News recently used the smaller number in an article " No 'real' Chinatown in S. Korea, the result of xenophobic attitudes" by Kim Hyung Jin (August 29, 2006) http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/Engnews/20060829/480100000020060829091233E3.html but a story on the Korean Hwakyo community by Tsinghua University reports the higher figure (“화교자본 끌어들이려면 화교사회 키워라”; in Korean) http://www.tsinghua.co.kr/introduce/board_view_form.html?cpage=4&uid=193&board_id=2&keyfield=&search_text=
  2. Onishi, Norimitsu. "Marriage brokers in Vietnam cater to S. Korean bachelors." February 21, 2007. International Herald Tribune. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/21/news/brides.php