SEOUL, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's population mobility turned downward in three months on the back of a fall in housing transactions and a rapidly aging population, statistical office data showed Wednesday.
The number of those who moved residence inside and outside the same province or city retreated 3.5 percent over the year to 493,000 in August after growing 8.6 percent in June and 8.1 percent in July, according to Statistics Korea.
It marked the lowest August figure in 49 years since 1976.
The population mobility had roughly been on the decline for the past years amid the population fall and the swiftly aging population.
A prolonged sluggishness in the real estate market also contributed to the lower population movement.
The population mobility rate, which measures the number of people relocating to fresh homes for every 100 people, dipped 0.4 percentage points to 11.4 percent in August compared to the same month of last year.
The capital Seoul and the second-biggest city of Busan posted a net outflow of 1,815 and 776 residents each, but the Gyeonggi province surrounding Seoul and the western port city of Incheon recorded a net inflow of 3,979 and 1,941 residents, respectively. ■
