Nearly half of single-member households in the country were in the poor class amid a rapid rise in the number of one-person households.

According to a report released by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs on Sunday, the relative poverty rate of one-person households came to 47-point-two percent in 2020, compared with 15-point-three percent for all households.

The rate refers to the percentage of people with incomes below 50 percent of the median income.

The relative poverty rate for households with one person aged 65 or older marked 72 percent in 2020, though it dropped by six-point-three percentage points from 2016.

The rate for female single-person households was 55-point-seven percent, much larger than the 34-point-five percent for men.

According to Statics Korea in December last year, the number of single-person households marked seven-point-16 million in 2021, up seven-point-two percent from the previous year.