In South Korea, vouchers to curb county’s falling population draw new residents

A novel approach by South Korea to stop its rural areas from dying by paying people to live there appears to be working. Okcheon in North Chungcheong province saw its population grow by almost 1,000 in just over two weeks since it became a participant in the state-backed programme earlier this month, according to The Korea Herald newspaper. The farming community was officially designated a “population decline area” in 2021. By the following year, its population fell to below the 50,000...