Thanks to more expats, the national population last year saw growth for the first time in three years. Shown are foreign students in July last year customizing their resumes at a job fair held at the Busan Port International Exhibition & Convention Center, aka BPEX, in Busan's Dong-gu District. (Yonhap News)

By Yoon Sojung

The national population last year grew after two straight years of decline thanks to more foreign residents.

Statistics Korea on July 29 released the 2023 population and housing census saying the country had 51.77 million people, up 0.2% or 80,000 year on year.

The figure decreased in 2021 and 2022 before rising last year thanks to a rapid increase in expats, or foreign nationals staying in the country for more than three months.

As of last year, the number of expats was 1.94 million, up 180,000 for a record-high rise of 10.4%. Foreign residents also comprised 3.7% of the population, up from 3.4%.

By nationality, Chinese of Korean descent accounted for the most expats with 27.5% (532,000), followed by Vietnamese with 12.8% (247,000), Chinese 11.4% (221,000) and Thais 9.9% (191,000). Vietnamese showed the highest increase of 18.1% (38,000), followed by Thais with 16.8% (27,000) and Chinese 8.5% (17,000). 

The number of Koreans, in contrast, fell 0.2% or 101,000 to 49.84 million. That of children aged 14 or under declined over 4% to 5.62 million. 

The number of households last year rose 1.5% to 27.23 million, among which that of multicultural families went up 4.1% to 416,000. Single-member households also comprised a record-high 35.5% of the population with 7.83 million.

arete@korea.kr