Park Honggeun: "Demographic Change Is a 'Future We Can Foresee'... Major Shift to 'Qualitative Growth'"

Park Honggeun, Minister of Planning and Budget, said on October 29, “We will pursue a major shift in our population strategy, moving beyond quantitative growth focused on expanding the population and centering instead on qualitative growth. We will fundamentally redesign the social and economic systems across all areas that affect people’s lives.”

Park made the remarks at the opening of the seminar “Demographic Change: Korea’s Future and Directions for Response,” jointly hosted by the Ministry of Planning and Budget and the National Assembly Futures Institute at the National Assembly Members’ Office Building. “Demographic change is not an uncertainty but a ‘future we can foresee,’” he said.

Minister of Planning and Budget Park Hong-geun listens to a question from People Power Party policy committee chair Lim I-ja, who criticized the government's planned "Future Response Fund," during a parliamentary audit of the Ministry of Planning and Budget by the National Assembly's Finance and Economy Planning Committee on the 8th. Yonhap News.

He stressed that demographic change is not simply a matter of population decline and aging, but an issue directly tied to the sustainability of Korean society as a whole, including jobs, education, welfare and balanced national development.

“Because demographic change affects each generation, social group and region differently, we must build social consensus to ensure that the burdens of change are shared fairly and that everyone can enjoy its benefits and opportunities,” he added.

Park also said, “Population issues are a national challenge that cannot be resolved through government efforts alone. We will work with the National Assembly, the representative body of the people, and lead social dialogue and consensus-building for the future.”

In his welcoming remarks, Kim Ki-sik, president of the National Assembly Futures Institute, said, “I hope this joint seminar will serve as a starting point for turning challenges identified through research into policies and legislation, and for carrying questions raised in the field forward into follow-up research.”

In the presentations that followed, speakers forecast the structural changes that population decline and aging will bring to education, labor, industry and other areas of society. They said reforming national systems and taking a long-term approach are essential to building a sustainable Korea.

Min Bokyung, director of research planning at the National Assembly Futures Institute, pointed out that the effects of population decline could cascade across sectors and vary by region. She said responses to demographic change should be considered at the level of the national system, linking education, defense, labor, industry and regional affairs, rather than being addressed by individual ministries alone.

Ahn Suji, a research fellow at the National Assembly Futures Institute, described a trend in which younger generations are spending less time in their first jobs and changing jobs more frequently while experiencing periods of unemployment. She stressed that, in an era of population decline, policies should shift beyond short-term employment outcomes to improve the stability and continuity of young people’s career paths.

Kim Jiwoon, a professor in the Department of Economics at Hongik University, proposed four key strategies: slowing the pace of population decline, making greater use of human resources, reforming the national system and responding to a super-aged society. He said Korea should move away from its existing quantitative growth model and pursue sustainable growth and intergenerational prosperity centered on higher productivity and quality of life.

In the ensuing panel discussion, moderated by Institute President Kim Ki-sik, participants included Song Jaebong, a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker; Jang Munseon, director general for responses to low birth rates at the Population Strategy Committee; Kim Hyeonsuk, director general for population and child policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare; Choi Seulgi, president of the Korean Association of Population Studies; and Han Yosep, head of the Education and Labor Innovation Research Team at the Korea Development Institute (KDI).

The Ministry of Planning and Budget plans to actively incorporate recommendations from experts and academia gathered at the seminar into the development of the “2045 Mid- to Long-Term National Development Strategy.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.