Basic Report

For the sustainability of local government where population is rapidly changing, there are important factors in sustainable living conditions such as welfare, education, culture, administrative services, and so on. In other words, living environment that can lead human life is an important factor of sustainability. In this study, it is selected a local government with marked population decline and analyzed the factors affecting population structure change and looked for alternatives in terms of sustainability. We have looked at a policy of Japan where has been experiencing population problems similar to ours. In terms of Japanese policy, they have similar population structure changes (population decline, population outflow into big cities, etc) so central government, local government and all government agencies promote various polices and projects. In particular, the central government offers policy directions in a large framework and gives the local governments autonomy in detailed policies and projects. Through a clear set of roles and power between governments, they are responding to the population problems. So what about our country? In this study, Yangyang-gun where the population is below the average and the population is decreasing continuously for more than three years and Hwacheon-gun where is the only country with a slow decrease in population in Gangwon-do are selected and compared. First of all, comparing the living environment conditions between Yangyang-gun and Hwacheon-gun, Yangyang-gun has implemented policies focusing on regional development or urban development, while Hwacheon-gun has implemented settlement support policies for local residents such as soldiers and urban residents. If we look at the population inflow policy, Yangyang-gun is making efforts to support youth employment subsidies and fostering social economic enterprise, while Hwacheon-gun is supporting financially such as transfer fund, childbirth subsidy, housing repair and adjusting the village environment for the settlement. On the other hand, as a result of the survey on the public officials in the two regions, Yangyang-gun has high satisfaction in living conditions, while Hwacheon-gun has high satisfaction in economic conditions. However, Hwacheon-gun is seriously accepting the perception of local extinction rather than Yangyang-gun. So the demand for living conditions and economic conditions is high. Nevertheless, in the policy improvement plan, there is a common perception that job creation and expansion of living infrastructure are necessary. Based on the results of comparative analysis of the Korea’s local government of the two regions and Japanese cases, we proposed three alternatives to enhance sustainabililty through population decline. First, as a matter of business promotion method to deal with population decrease, it is deviating from the existing top-down approach and gives policy autonomy to local government to make a plan for local development. Second, it is a matter of establishing a support system at the central government according to the regional planning. As in the case of Japan, the central government needs to build support systems and disseminate standardization methodologies. All Japanese local governments establish and promote regional plans in accordance with the standardized methodology of central government. Third, the ultimate population decline measure is to prevent it from leading to a regional economic downturn. In other words, job creation is the starting point of population problem solving and it promotes consumption. And it is necessary to have a virtuous cycle structure so that it can be linked to improvement of living environment such as expansion of basic infrastructure of local government.