On May 8th and 9th, 2019, at the invitation of the Northeast Asian Research Center, Professor Kim Ik Ki from Dongguk University in South Korea visited and held two academic lectures in the conference room of Dongrong Building.

    Professor Kim Ik Ki is a professor of the Department of Sociology at Dongguk University in South Korea. He is currently a distinguished professor of ENN Group International at Renmin University of China. He has been engaged in sociology, demography, gerontology and environment

    l studies for a long time. He has been paying attention to social changes in East Asia and has achieved fruitful results.

    Professor Kimgave a detailed introduction to South Korea’s population changes and socio-economic development with the themes of "Korea’s low fertility rate, population aging and population policy", "Korea’s population movement, urbanization, and population concentration in the metropolitan area". Some major issues that have emerged in the population development process of South Korea have raised some warnings for China's population development through the comparison between China and South Korea.

    Professor Kim pointed out that after the end of World War II, with the rapid economic and social development of South Korea, South Korea’s fertility rate dropped rapidly and the aging rate accelerated, forming a population phenomenon of low fertility and rapid aging. The capital area is highly concentrated, forming an unbalanced development model, which has brought many social problems. In response to the population problem, South Korea has made substantial adjustments to its population policies and related economic and social policies, and has achieved some practical results in responding to aging and evacuation of Seoul’s population, but problems such as low fertility rates are still difficult to solve. China, Japan, and South Korea have different stages of development, but they have relatively high commonalities in population issues. After experiencing rapid demographic transition, they are facing the problems of low fertility and population aging. South Korea’s experience and lessons are worthy of China attention.

Teachers from the Northeast Asian Research Center gave an enthusiastic response to the lecture. They had active discussions with Professor Kim on Korea’s policies and measures to deal with an aging society.

    Professor Kim Ik Ki’s lecture was of a broad vision, rich content, detailed data, and humorous language. It provided valuable information for relevant professional teachers of the Northeast Asian Research Center to further understand South Korea’s population and economic and social development, and was positive for related academic research.