Regional Youth Population Prediction Using LSTM

Jaejun Seo, Sunwoong Yoon, Jiwoo Kim and Kyusang Kwon ()
Additional contact information
Jaejun Seo: Department of Urban Engineering, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 28644, Republic of Korea
Sunwoong Yoon: Department of Urban Engineering, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 28644, Republic of Korea
Jiwoo Kim: Department of Urban Engineering, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 28644, Republic of Korea
Kyusang Kwon: Department of Urban Engineering, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 28644, Republic of Korea

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 15, 1-16

Abstract: Regional shrinkage, driven by declining birth rates, an aging population, and population concentration in the capital region, has become an increasingly serious issue in South Korea, threatening the long-term sustainability of local communities. Among various factors, youth out-migration is a key driver, undermining the economic resilience and vitality of local areas. This study aims to predict youth population trends across 229 municipalities by incorporating diverse regional socioeconomic factors and providing a foundation for policy implementation to mitigate demographic disparities. To this end, a long short-term memory (LSTM) model, based on a direct approach that independently forecasts each future time point, was employed. The model was trained using the youth population data from 2003 to 2022 and socioeconomic variables, including employment, education, housing, and infrastructure. The results reveal a persistent nationwide decline in the youth population, with significantly sharper decreases in local areas than in the capital region. These findings underscore the deepening spatial imbalance and highlight the urgent need for region-specific demographic policies to address the accelerating risk of regional population decline.

Keywords: regional shrinkage; youth population; population decline; LSTM (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/15/6905/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/15/6905/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:15:p:6905-:d:1712949

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().