Koreans reach their peak labor income compared to consumption at age 45 over their life cycle, recording the largest surplus, data showed.

Conversely, they recorded the largest deficit at age 16, when education spending surges due to college entrance preparations and other factors, and they enter another deficit phase later in life driven by medical expenses.

With older adults' purchasing power growing and the impact of an aging population, the size of the deficit among the elderly surpassed that of the young for the first time.

Statistics Korea released these findings on September 17 in the "2024 National Transfer Accounts."

National Transfer Accounts analyze the relationship between consumption and labor income according to age to understand the flow of economic resources across generations.

Looking at the per capita life cycle, it consists of a three-stage structure of "deficit → surplus → deficit" as age increases.

From age 0 to 27, consumption exceeds labor income, resulting in a deficit, with age 16 recording the largest deficit at 46.04 million won.

People enter a surplus phase at age 28.

From this age until 60, labor income remained larger than consumption.

In particular, age 45 recorded the largest surplus at 19.32 million won.

This is seen as largely driven by per capita labor income peaking at 46.51 million won during this period.

However, starting from age 61, the typical retirement age, labor income shrinks, shifting back into a deficit period, with the deficit size growing as age increases.

This is due to rising medical expenditures driven by aging.

Since 2010, the age of entering a surplus has generally remained consistent at 27 to 28.

However, the point of re-entering a deficit was delayed by 5 years, moving from age 56 in 2010 to age 61 in 2024.

This is interpreted as the effect of an increasing number of older adults continuing to work even after retirement.

Life cycle deficits were shown to be supplemented by the government's public reallocations and private intra- and inter-household reallocations.

In fact, the 344.9 trillion won net outflow from the working-age population (aged 15 to 64) was reallocated to the young population (aged 14 and under) and the elderly population (aged 65 and older) at 185.9 trillion won and 148.3 trillion won, respectively.

Looking at public reallocations, which show the flow of taxes, there was a net outflow of 216.3 trillion won from the working-age population, while the young and elderly populations recorded net inflows of 93.3 trillion won and 123 trillion won, respectively.

Private reallocations such as inheritances and gifts also saw a net outflow of 128.6 trillion won from the working-age population, with net inflows of 92.6 trillion won for the young population and 25.3 trillion won for the elderly population.

The total life cycle deficit in South Korea for 2024 (total consumption minus labor income) was tallied at 220.1 trillion won, down 7.3 trillion won from the previous year.

The life cycle deficit scale shrank because the increase in consumption was smaller than that of labor income.

Consumption rose 3.4% from a year earlier to 1,509.8 trillion won.

Among this, public consumption increased by 4.5% and private consumption by 2.9%.

In public consumption, the growth rate of public health consumption stood out at 6.2%, while in private consumption, the growth rate of private health and other consumption was relatively large at 3.0%.

By age group, consumption by the elderly showed the largest surge at 8.1%, while the working-age population increased by 2.7% and the young population by 1.0%.

The proportion of elderly consumption in total consumption expanded by 0.8 percentage points to 17.5%.

This is the highest since related statistics began to be compiled in 2010.

An official from Statistics Korea explained, "Labor income among the elderly has increased, and asset income such as savings has also risen, expanding purchasing power," adding, "The increase in the elderly population due to aging also had an impact."

Conversely, this proportion shrank by 0.3 percentage points and 0.5 percentage points for the young population (12.3%) and the working-age population (70.2%), respectively.


Labor income was tallied at 1,289.7 trillion won, up 4.6%.

In detail, wage income increased by 4.7% and self-employed labor income by 2.6%.

By age group, the deficit for the young population stood at 186.2 trillion won, up 1.0% from a year earlier, and the deficit for the elderly population reached 188.9 trillion won, up 5.3%.

This is the first time since the compilation of related statistics that the deficit of the elderly population has surpassed that of the young population.

The working-age population generated a surplus of 155 trillion won.

The size of the surplus expanded by 13.7% compared to a year earlier.

(Photo courtesy of Statistics Korea, Yonhap News)