In an aging society,
there are 7 seniors out of every one hundred people,
while an aged society has 14 
and a super-aged society has 20.
Korea is expected to enter a super-aged society in 2026.
In fact, at the current pace of aging,
Korea is on track to become a super-aged society
10 years faster than Japan.
In terms of the working-age population,
Korea’s 65-plus population will grow
1.7 times faster than Japan from 2015 to 2050.
And the share of the senior population
will equal that of the working population
in 2050.
So, what are the economic repercussions of 
a rapidly aging population?
KDI conducted an analysis based on
the labor force participation rate by age group in 2017,
assuming 3 scenarios to estimate
the economic growth rate for the coming three decades.
Firstly, assuming that the labor force participation rate
remains unchanged during the period,
the economic growth rate will average 
 2.0% in the 2020s
and 1.0% in the 2040s.
Next, taking into account
Korea’s lower employment rate for women than for men,
estimates were made for the growth
in the participation rate of women.
For this, Sweden’s employment structure,
which has a small gap between men and women,
was applied.
However, the results showed that
the economic growth rate declined.
Growth trends again failed to improve
when the employment structure of Japan,
who underwent population aging before Korea,
was applied.
The reason for the lack of improvement is because
the number of retirees far outnumbers 
that of the working population.
As a result, even a high participation rate is inadequate
to offset the decline in the labor supply.
Accordingly, unless significant improvements
are made in productivity
through measures to expand the substitute labor force,
which includes women and young people,
efforts to counter population aging will remain limited.
Additionally, the results revealed that
in order to ease the downtrend in economic growth,
the labor participation rate of women
must be at a similar level to Sweden
and that of men to Japan’s
while the senior participation rate is at Korea’s level.
The involvement of the senior population 
in economic activities
will not only ease the decline in economic growth,
but also reduce the dependency ratio,
serving as an effective 
countermeasure to population aging.
