New data shows that South Korea’s population declined for the first time ever last year.

According to Statistics Korea’s “Population and Housing Census” released on Thursday, the nation’s population totaled 51-point-74 million in 2021, 91-thousand less than 2020.

The statistics agency said it marked the first time the nation’s population slipped since it began compiling related statistics in 1949, a year after the South Korean government was established.

As a result, the average annual growth rate of the population posted its first negative figure of minus zero-point-two percent in 2021.

The rate had continuously posted growth up until 2020, though it had slipped below one percent in 1995 after standing at three percent in 1960.

South Korea's fertility rate, the average number of children born to a woman over her reproductive life in South Korea, hit a record low of zero-point-81 last year, according to Statistics Korea, down from zero-point-84 in 2020, and sliding for the sixth consecutive year.

The average for members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD stood at one-point-59 in 2020.