According to recently released government data, the average monthly household consumption expenditures in South Korea in 2019 was about US $2,234, with the largest expenditure being on restaurants and hotels.
Unlike the consumption in the general population, the average monthly household consumption expenditures among wage earners living in the cities, is almost 14% larger and is about US $2,530. The expenditures items and consumption percentages of the general population and the urban salary and wage earners are quite similar, so we couldn’t learn about any significant findings regarding the type of consumption or its priorities.
The figure below shows the distribution of the average monthly consumption items among the general population in South Korea during 2019:
According to the data, the average monthly consumption of a households with one person is US $1,296, with most (17.9%) being spent on housing, electricity, gas and water bills. In contrast, in a family with 4 people, the average monthly consumption is about US $3,380 and the main expenditure (15.8%) is on education.
New data for 2020 shows that in the second quarter of 2020, the average monthly consumption has already reached to US $2,647, an increase of 18.4% compared to 2019, despite the corona virus epidemic which is causing an economic slowdown elsewhere in the world.
