Analysis of Research Trends in Responding to Population Decline through Text Mining

Recently, our society has entered a phase of significant population decline due to the simultaneous progression of low birth rates and aging, and discussions on how to respond to this issue are actively taking place at both the policy and academic levels. This study utilized text mining techniques to quantitatively analyze academic papers related to population decline and responses published in Korea from November 2019 to December 2024, aiming to derive the structural characteristics and core themes of research trends. The analysis included a total of 116 papers, applying methods such as word frequency, inter-document importance, and multidimensional scaling. The analysis revealed that keywords such as “region,” “city” “policy,” “youth,” and “economy” emerged as core themes in terms of both centrality and maturity. Research topics were found to be expanding into diverse fields such as aging, regional decline, housing, foreign immigration, and welfare services. These results empirically demonstrate that responses to population decline are not limited to simple population variables but are multidimensional issues complexly linked to spatial, economic, and social policies. This study is significant in that it provides foundational data for future policy design and academic research direction through a quantitative structural analysis of population decline discourse.