Returning Farmers and the Aging of Farm Households: Prospects of Changes in Rural Population by Their Influx

Abstract

The aging of farm households has caused serious problems such as productivity slowdown and aggravated income polarization in South Korea. Urban-to-rural migration has been recently suggested as a measure to attenuate the aging of rural population and other related problems. The inflow of migrants for farming can have a substantial effect on agriculture and rural communities while the natural adjustment of rural population caused by birth and death is slow. This paper forecasts population distribution of different provinces using the Origin-Destination (OD) analysis, taking into account both the size and directions of migration. In the analysis, nodes where the migration takes place are divided by the industrial sectors (agriculture and non-agriculture), regions, and ages. The results of a ten-year forecast shows that the aging of total population in most provinces will be intensified, but the portion of people over sixty will decrease in the agricultural sector. This finding implies that migration into rural areas, when occurring by a large extent, can mitigate the aging process and attendant problems.