SEOUL, June 25 (Xinhua) -- One-person households in South Korea rose fast last year as the aging population raised the number of one-person households in their 50s or higher, statistical office data showed Tuesday.
The number of one-person households reached 5,788,000 as of October in 2018, up 3.1 percent from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea.
It accounted for 29.2 percent of all households in the month, up 0.5 percentage points from a year ago.
The fast growth in one-person households came amid the population aging. South Korea became an aged society in 2017 as the number of those aged 65 or older topped 14 percent of the total population.
In 2000, the country became the aging society, which has the elderly people taking up more than 7 percent of the total population. If the portion surpasses 20 percent, a country becomes a super-aged society.
Among the total one-person households, the number of those employed grew 3.1 percent to 3,537,000 in the cited period, accounting for 61.1 percent of the total.
Among the employed one-person households, those aged 50-64 took up 26.6 percent of the total as of last October, with the rate for those aged 65 or higher making up 10.8 percent.
It was followed by the one-person households in their 30s with 23 percent, those in their 40s with 20.6 percent and those aged 15-29 with 19 percent each.
Among the employed one-person households, the male households came in at 57.7 percent of the total, with the female standing at 42.3 percent.
Meanwhile, the number of double-income households was 5,675,000 as of last October, accounting for 46.3 percent of all married couple households. It was up 1.7 percentage points from a year earlier.
The portion of dual-income households continued to rise from 42.9 percent in 2013 to 45.5 percent in 2016, before falling to 44.6 percent in 2017.
The ratio of married couples in their 40s with dual income took up 54.2 percent of the total married couples of that age band. It was followed by those aged 50-64 with 50.5 percent and those in their 30s with 49.9 percent.