Gyeonggi Province home to 540,000 foreign residents; 32% of foreign population nationwide
Createdd 2016-11-25 Hit 524
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Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs and Statistics
Korea announces statistics on foreign residents
On November 15, Gyeonggi
Province announced that 549,503 foreign residents were living in Gyeonggi
Province out of 1,711,013 foreign residents nationwide as of November 1, 2015. Pictured:
6th Osan-si Dahana Hanmaeum Festival that took place on October 16 ⓒ
Gyeonggi G-News
32%
of all foreign residents in Korea currently live in Gyeonggi Province.
On November 15, Gyeonggi Province announced that
549,503 foreign residents were living in Gyeonggi Province out of 1,711,013 foreign
residents nationwide as of November 1, 2015. These results were part of the 2015
Current State of Foreign Residents in Local Autonomies released on November 14
by the Ministry of Government Administration & Home Affairs and Statistics
Korea.
This
census suggests Ansan City is home to the largest number of foreign residents
in Gyeonggi Province.
According
to the census, 13.8% of the foreign resident population in Gyeonggi, or 75,965 foreign
residents, live in Ansan City.
Following
Ansan was Suwon City with 51,258 (9.3%) foreign residents, Hwaseong City with
46,136 (8.4%), Siheung City with 43,295 (7.87%), and Bucheon City with 32,475
(5.0%). There were 20 popular foreign resident concentrations (i.e. cities and
counties with foreign residents accounting for more than 5%) of total populations)
including Seongnam City, Pyeongtaek City, and Yongin City. Additionally, 19
cities and counties including Ansan City, Suwon City, and Hwaseong City had
more than 10,000 foreign residents in their jurisdiction.
In
terms of nationality, more than half of all foreign residents in Gyeonggi were
Chinese (including Chinese-Koreans) at 305,700 (55.6%). China eclipsed Vietnam at
43,432 (7.9%), Thailand at 38,440 (7%), and the Philippines at 23,843 (4.3%).
As
for immigration categories, foreign laborers were the largest group at 213,808
(39%), followed by foreign-born ethnic Koreans at 77,605 (14%), married
immigrants and naturalized citizens through marriage at 67,447 (12.2%), and children
of foreign residents at 50,313 (9.1%).
The
gender ratio of foreign residents in Gyeonggi stood in favor of males at 306,877
(55.8%) men and 242,626 (44.2%) women. As for foreign laborers, however, 72.9%
were men while 82% of married immigrants and naturalized citizens through
marriage were women.
Foreign
resident statistics compiled by municipal governments are released after the 2015
National Census conducted by Statistics Korea. Data for this year’s census, however, was collected using a different methodology.
The
survey period changed from January 1 each year to November 1 to coincide with
the national census period. Also, to survey the ‘actual
foreign population in Korea’, foreigners residing
outside of Korea three months before or after the survey period were excluded
from the data. Dual citizenship holders were excluded as well to avoid
double-counting, and illegal immigrants with records entering the country but
without any records exiting the country were included in the data.
According
to this new collection method, the number of foreign residents in Gyeonggi
Province dropped 4,657 from 554,160 persons in January 1, 2015.
Kim
Jin-kyoung jinkyoungkim@kg21.net
