According to a study conducted by Busan City Government, one in a hundred Busanites are now expats with Busan’s foreign population reaching 40,913 (21,741 men and 19,172 women), or 1.2 percent of the city’s 3,555,949 people. That figure represents an increase of 7,721, or 23.3 percent, when compared with the same period last year.
Of the total foreign population, 33,446 are residents. Of that group 15,583 are here on work visas, 5,597 are married to Koreans, 5,819 are students, 1,311 are Koreans from overseas and the remaining 5,136 are here for miscellaneous reasons.
The increase in the expat population is of interest to demographers as the native population of Busan has been on the decrease for the past several years. The city estimates that an average of 220 people leave Busan every day --most of those moving to the Seoul metropolitan area. |
