South Korea’s average household debt increased more rapidly than their income last year, with the debt at the households led by those in their 40s rising at the fastest rate, government data showed on Tuesday.

According to data released by Statistics Korea, the Financial Supervisory Service and the Bank of Korea, the average household debt hit 66.55 million won ($55,844) as of the end of March this year, growing at the fastest on-year rate of 6.4 percent since the 7.5 percent gain in 2013. On the other hand, the average household income amounted to 48.83 million won in 2015, up 1.13 million won, or 2.4 percent, from the previous year, which was also slower than the 2.6 percent gain in the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) over the same period.

The debt of households headed by adults aged below 50 grew at the fastest pace. The debt of households whose heads aged between 40 and 49 showed the biggest gain of 12 percent, rising to 80.17 million won as of end-March this year from 71.6 million won last year. The gain of the debt held by the self-employed was the smallest at 3.9 percent, but they held the largest debt averaging 98.12 million won, according to the data.

The average household assets rose 4.3 percent on year to 361.87 million won as of end-March. Their financial assets edged up 1.2 percent to 94 million won over the same period, while the non-financial assets rose 5.5 percent to 267.88 million won. Their real estate assets amounted to 250.29 million won, up 5.8 percent.

The average assets held by the nation’s top 20 percent income bracket accounted for 44.7 percent of the entire household assets, up 0.2 percentage point from the previous year, and the share of assets of the fourth quintile income group also rose 0.2 percentage point to 22.1 percent. On the contrary, the assets held by the bottom 20 percent income bracket declined 0.2 percentage point, taking up just 6.7 percent of the country’s total household assets.

By Cho Si-young and Kim Se-woong

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]