• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.538-553
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• 2014

The aim of this study is to consider the degree of supply-demand balance in relation to the characteristics of retail sale activities in depopulation aging regions and the degree of aging by using simple regression analysis. The major findings of this study are as follows. While aging society, and aged society regions show a similar major retail sale industries, super-aged society shows fewer major industries and different industry composition. These characteristics are seen by different phenomenon and the background of the particular retail structure. The first one is that the number of employees per establishment increases when the aging phenomenon is not accelerated, and the annual sales per capita purchasing power decrease because their purchasing power becomes lower when the aging phenomenon is severe, but it also shows a high density of establishments because disperse location of establishment within depopulation aging region. The second one is the retail structure with high labor productivity in a aged and superaged society region. We identify the extent of demand and supply in general retails, fuel retails, food and beverage, and tobacco retails which represent the highest sales rates in depopulation aging region. As a result, general retails are seen as 'supply-demand balance region' in aged and super-aged society, fuel retail sales in aged and super-aged society which generally shows less sales, and food and beverages, and tobacco retails in super-aged society. The higher the degree of aging is, the less the regional differences in the gap between demand and supply is. This is because the difference in purchasing power between these regions is small.