The shelf · South Korea
Does On Living Alone: A Sociology of Solitary People hold up?
On Living Alone: A Sociology of Solitary People, by Noh Myung-woo (2013)
A sociologist's study of why Koreans increasingly live alone.
The short answer
Its prediction was right and arrived 13 years early.
The claims, checked
About one in four Korean households is a one-person household.
Outdated 8.24 million households, or 36.6%, at the 2025 census: more than one in three.
One-person households will reach 34.3% by 2035, and the trend will not reverse.
Holds The projection was beaten 13 years early: 34.5% in 2022, then 36.1% in 2024 and 36.6% in 2025.
Evidence: Newsis, on Statistics Korea 2024