A Review of the Legal Framework for Supporting Depopulation Regions

Persistent local population decline can shrink local economies, weaken local public finances, and undermine the stable provision of essential public services, including healthcare, education, transportation, and care services. These consequences may, in turn, accelerate further population outflows and create a vicious cycle. Moreover, the resulting concentration of population and economic capacity in particular regions may widen interregional disparities and adversely affect balanced national development. Addressing local population decline should therefore be understood not merely as a matter of demographic or regional development policy, but as a national task necessary to promote balanced development and ensure the effective protection of residents’ fundamental rights and local autonomy. Korea has established various institutional measures under the Special Act on Support for Depopulation Regions, including the concept of the living population, a bottom-up system for formulating plans to respond to population decline, financial support, and special measures applicable to depopulation regions. The Act has considerable legislative significance in that it provides a systematic foundation for addressing local population decline. Nevertheless, several limitations remain regarding the designation and redesignation of depopulation regions, the allocation of responsibilities among governmental actors, the effectiveness of financial support, and the practical implementation of the support schemes and special measures established under the Act. Japan addresses similar issues through the Act on Special Measures for Supporting the Sustainable Development of Depopulated Areas. Unlike Korea, Japan prescribes quantitative demographic and fiscal-capacity requirements for determining whether a municipality qualifies as a depopulated area. It also provides deeming and transitional provisions to prevent the abrupt termination of support for municipalities or areas that cease to satisfy the ordinary statutory requirements. In addition, the Japanese Act assigns prefectural governments specific responsibilities, including the direct implementation of certain projects. It also links projects included in municipal and prefectural plans to special measures concerning national subsidies and local government bonds and reflects revenue losses arising from local tax reductions in the calculation of local allocation tax. These measures offer useful guidance for improving the effectiveness of Korea’s legal framework. Based on this comparative analysis, this Article proposes several legislative reforms. First, the principal indicators, calculation methods, and criteria used to designate depopulation regions should be clearly prescribed by statute. The interval and procedure for redesignation should also be placed on a statutory basis. Transitional measures should be introduced to maintain support and special measures for ongoing projects for a certain period after a region loses its designation. In addition, the statutory functions of the Support Center for Depopulation Regions should be clarified, and a regional governance system should be established to connect the central support organization with regional support organizations. The respective responsibilities of the State, metropolitan and provincial governments, and Si, Gun, and Gu governments designated as depopulation regions should also be clearly allocated. In particular, the entities responsible for implementing projects of a special nature should be distinguished from those responsible for providing administrative and financial support. To enhance the effectiveness of financial support, the allocation method of the Local Extinction Response Fund should be improved, and the fiscal needs of depopulation regions should be more adequately reflected in the calculation of ordinary local allocation tax.