Tackling population decline

The project is funded by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS), the Government of South Korea.
Revealing the causes of (current and projected) population declines accounts for the regional characteristics by employing big data analytics in tandem with other technologies, and mitigating its effects to the areas where the population is shrinking or decline is forecast.

About Depopulation Area Response Centre (DARC), KRILA

Since 1st January 2023, the DARC has been established supporting areas suffering from depopulation with inadequate economic opportunities
DARC's focus is to be at the forefront of policy commissioning groups figuring out what are the grand challenges of depopulating areas:
tackling demographic challenges and socioeconomic inequalities by understanding the characteristics of regions through big data analysis
The centre undertakes a range of outreach activities targeted at local initiatives, including local government, active numbers of the communities and businesses, to create action plans by coordinating efforts for depopulating areas. For doing so, we propose a new conceptual framework, regional vitality, for evaluating and characterising the appropriate level of demographic and economic activities in a given area. This framework, based on the analysis of changes over time using novel data sources, can help identify regions that have been affected by population decline. It also supports local initiatives consisting of local governments, active community members, and local businesses. The research results provide a fresh and locally informed perspective on addressing the population shrinking in South Korea and encourage local governments to revitalise affected areas.
Our missions:
1. Conducting policy research, analysis, and developing plans to address population shrinking across South Korea
2. Providing educational and consulting services to enhance regional vitality
3. Identifying and promoting effective local strategies to counteract population shrinkage and bolster regional vitality
4. Supporting the formation, execution, and evaluation of national and local plans for regional population decline response
5. Assisting with the designation of depopulation regions across South Korea, and its viability assessment
6. Undertaking research, analysis, and studies on the living population, particularly depopulation area
7. Implementing any other necessary measures to support regions facing population decline and respond to regional population shrinkage

Project Description

South Korea has seen a substantial population decline, characterised by low birth rates, an ageing population, and uneven population distribution across regions. A number of regions were designated as depopulation areas, facing population shrinking and economic hardship together, by the South Korean government.

This project aims to assess and improve the liveability of these areas by applying advanced data mining and visualisation techniques. The focus is on i) mapping mobility patterns of young individuals from outside the city using mobile phone data and ii) understanding consumer behaviour through the analysis of card transaction data.

The results will provide new insights into South Korea's depopulation crisis and help local governments tackle regional demographic and economic challenges, create job opportunities and attract a younger population to these areas.

Unveiling variation in regional vitality over time

In this paper, we propose a new conceptual framework, regional vitality, for assessing the appropriate level of demographic and economic activities using novel data sources. This framework helps regions to develop their pathways to tackle pop- ulation decline. Our findings reveal that designated depopulation regions expe- rienced relatively higher volatility in the social vitality index while relatively lower volatility in the economic vitality index, as measured by the coefficient of variation, compared with other regions in South Korea.

Reproducible and replicable digital dashboard for regional government

In this paper, we identified prominent regions that have suffered from population shrinking based upon measuring regional vitality across regions in South Korea, and develop solutions to foster local initiatives to create action plans by coordinating efforts for the areas. To This end, we shared codes of the open-source dashboard and publicly available datasets to replicate and reproduce the same, or sufficiently similar results as the original, responsible for the end-users.