South Korea's Shrinking Population: 49 Schools to Be Closed by 2025

February 27, 2025 | 02:22 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - By 2025, a total of 49 elementary, middle, and high schools across 17 cities and provinces in South Korea will be forced to close. This closure is a direct result of the ongoing and significant decline in the school-age population.

South Korean government data confirms that schools have been grappling with a shortage of students for several years, as reported by Antara. The number of schools slated for closure has increased dramatically, from 22 in 2023 to 33 in 2024, and now to 49 by 2025.

South Korea has been experiencing a consistent population decline since 2020. In 2024, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared a demographic emergency in the country, highlighting the severity of the population decline.

The Onset of Decline in 2020

South Korea's census data reveals that the nation's population experienced its first-ever decline in 2020. The number of deaths began to surpass the number of births, leading to a natural population decrease. Census figures released by the South Korean Ministry of the Interior showed a population of 51,829,023 people on December 31, 2020, a drop of 20,838 from the end of 2019.

In previous decades, South Korea's population had consistently grown, though the growth rate had steadily decreased from 1.49 percent in 2010 to just 0.05 percent in 2019.

In 2020, there were 275,815 births, a 10.65 percent decrease from the previous year. However, 307,764 people died in 2020, a 3.1 percent increase from 2019. The number of deaths had increased annually from 2011 to 2018 before a slight decline in 2019, only to rise again in 2020.

Of the 17 cities and provinces in South Korea, only five reported population increases: Gyeonggi, Jeju, Gangwon, North Chungcheong, and Sejong. Meanwhile, Seoul's population decreased by more than 60,000. Seoul and its surrounding areas, Incheon and Gyeonggi, which collectively represent half of South Korea's total population of 26,038,307 people, saw an increase of approximately 112,000 from the previous year.

The Plummeting Birth Rate

The birth rate in South Korea continues to plummet, with only 249,000 babies born in 2022. This figure is the lowest in three consecutive years, triggering a 4.4 percent population decline from the previous record low in 2021, according to the country's statistics. The 2022 data shows that the average Korean woman gives birth to her first child at the age of 33, the second child at the age of 34.2, and the third child at the age of 35.6.

The consistently declining birth rate is a major concern for policymakers, as South Korea's fertility rate reached a record low of 0.7 in the third quarter of 2023. This figure is far below the replacement level of 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population of 51 million people.

The World Economic Forum has warned that if this low birth rate trend persists, South Korea's population is projected to halve by the end of this century. 

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