Population-Decline Areas to Be Redesignated This Month... Gangwon State Must Push for Improvements to the Calculation Method

[Financial News, Chuncheon = Reporter Kim Ki-seop] With the redesignation of areas with population decline scheduled for this month, calls are growing for Gangwon State to go beyond preserving the number of designated municipalities and actively urge the government to improve the calculation method for the population decline index. The current method does not adequately reflect the crisis facing Gangwon State.
According to the Gangwon Research Institute on the 4th, research fellows Jeong Yun-hui, Shin Min-jong and Park Da-ye-seul noted the limitations of the current indicator system by simulating the population decline index using the publicly available calculation method. They made the assessment in a recently published article in Policy Talk Talk No. 48, titled "Redesignation of Population-Decline Areas and Gangwon State's Response Directions." The Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) plans to redesignate areas with population decline and areas of concern this month based on the latest statistics.
Gangwon State currently has 12 cities and counties designated as areas with population decline and four as areas of concern. They receive allocations from the Local Extinction Response Fund, worth approximately 1 trillion won annually, as well as priority support for state-subsidized projects. The redesignation results will therefore determine regional finances for the next five years.
The simulation showed that Gangwon State remained among the regions facing the most severe population-decline risks nationwide, but some municipalities could fall near the designation threshold. The researchers attributed this not to an easing of the crisis but to the overlapping limitations of the indicators. Because population density was standardized against an extreme high-density value such as Yangcheon District in Seoul, 103 areas nationwide were pushed below 0.01. Fifteen of them were municipalities in Gangwon State. Inje County, which has the lowest population density among all cities, counties and districts nationwide, was assigned a standardized value of zero and was effectively excluded from the index.
The researchers also pointed out that the crude birth rate, aging ratio and youth population ratio have correlation coefficients of 0.7 to 0.8, meaning they repeatedly measure similar information. In border areas, military-related households can make the crude birth rate appear better than actual civilian settlement conditions. Inje County is a representative example: although it has the nation's lowest population density, its crude birth rate ranked 219th, placing it on the safer side.
The researchers proposed several improvements: introducing log-transformation standardization for population density; combining similar demographic-structure indicators into a single composite index with one weight; providing adjusted statistics based on the civilian population in border areas; developing arguments for maintaining the designation of municipalities near the threshold, including Yanggu County, Sokcho and Inje County; and expanding disclosure of the calculation process, including the formulas for each indicator and the basis for the weights. They explained that these limitations are common not only to Gangwon State but also to low-density and border areas nationwide, and that the government should be persuaded to improve the fairness of the measurement system.
Research Fellow Jeong Yun-hui said, "Gangwon State's difficulties—higher public-service costs caused by its vast area, mountainous and border conditions, and scattered settlement patterns—cannot be revealed through population figures alone. Rather than reacting excessively to the redesignation results, Gangwon State should continuously propose concrete improvements to the government, such as changes to the population-density calculation method and adjustments based on the civilian population. It should take the lead in creating a fair yardstick that low-density areas nationwide can share."

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