The number of registered births nationwide last year surpassed 240,000, its first increase in nine years. Shown are doctors on the morning of Jan. 1 holding babies at Cha University Ilsan Medical Center in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do Province. (Ilsan Medical Center)

By Lee Kyoung Mi

The number of registered births nationwide last year exceeded 240,000 to post its first growth in nine years.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety on Jan. 3 said this in announcing the results of an analysis of data on the 2024 nationally registered population. It said the number of such births reached 242,334 last year, up 3.1% from 235,039 in 2023.

While the number of newborns increased, the national population last year declined for the fifth straight year to 51,217,221. The data showed 220,573 more women (25,718,897) than men (25,498,324), a gap that has widened since the former eclipsed the latter in number for the first time in 2015.

The average age in the country was 45.3 years, with women (46.5) being 2.3 years older than men (44.2). By age, the largest group was people were in their 50s with 876,370 (17%) and the smallest was children under age 10 with 3,140,118 (6.13%).

The number of senior citizens aged 65 and older also kept rising.

Both the number of children ages 0-14 and that of the working age population (15-64) fell last year, but the figure for people aged 65 or older rose 5.41% or 526,371. That of children ages 0-14 comprised 10.67% of the population, that of people ages 15-64 69.3% and those aged 65 or older 20.03%.

More detailed population data is available on the resident demographics websites of the ministry's population statistics webpage (jumin.mois.go.kr) and public data portal (data.go.kr) and the Korean Statistical Information Service (kosis.kr).

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