North Jeolla Province Shows Clear Decline in Rural Migration Population, Raising Concerns About Regional Vitality

The population of people returning to rural areas in North Jeolla Province showed a clear decline last year. Unlike the nationwide increase in rural migration, North Jeolla experienced negative growth in both returning farmers and rural settlers, raising concerns about regional vitality. According to the '2024 Statistics on Returning Farmers and Rural Settlers' released by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and Statistics Korea, the number of households returning to farming in North Jeolla decreased by 16.1% to 903 households from 1,076 in the previous year, while rural settler households dropped by 9.4% to 14,810. During the same period, nationwide farming households decreased by 20.0% to 8,243, but rural settler households increased by 4.0% to 318,658, showing a contrasting trend to North Jeolla. By province, Gyeonggi Province had the highest number of rural settler households at 86,741 (27.2%), followed by South Chungcheong (41,050), North Gyeongsang (38,782), ...