SEOUL, Middle-aged South Korean people earned 1.5 times more than their younger counterparts last year, and they took out a larger amount of loans to buy homes and for other purposes, data showed Wednesday.

The average annual earnings of people aged 40-64 came to 40 million won (US$30,812) in 2022, up 5 percent from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

The income of those aged 15-39 rose 6.4 percent on-year to stand at 27.81 million won in 2022, and people aged 60 and older saw their annual income rise 7.6 percent to 17.71 million won, the data showed.

The median debt among the middle-aged people came to 60.6 million won last year, compared with 40 million won that their younger counterparts had. The amount of debt among elderly citizens came to 33 million won.

Median debt is a midpoint debt that divides borrowers into two equal groups.

Of the total middle-aged people, 44.3 percent, or 8.94 million, had their own homes, with the comparable figure among the younger group coming to 11.8 percent.

The number of middle-aged people in South Korea stood at 20.2 million in 2022, accounting for 40.5 percent of the country's total population.

Those aged 15-39 took up 29.9 percent of the total, and the proportion of those aged 65 and older was 18.1 percent last year, according to the data.

Source: Yonhap News Agency