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The poverty rate of older adults in Korea, which had been on the decline in previous years, regressed in 2022, raising concerns over related issues, such as diminished access to health care.

The relative poverty rate of adults aged 65 and older stood at 38.1 percent that year, up 0.5 percentage points from a year earlier, according to a report released Monday by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Statistics Korea.

The relative poverty rate refers to the ratio of people with an income below 50 percent of the median income.

The figure for women aged 65 and older was 43.4 percent, while that for men was 31.2 percent.

The rate had been on the decline, tallying 46.5 percent in 2011, 44.5 percent in 2014, 42.3 percent in 2017 and 41.4 percent in 2019.

In 2020, the figure dropped below the 40 percent mark for the first time to 38.9 percent and then fell further to 37.6 percent in 2021. But it rose in 2022 to 38.1 percent.

The latest relative poverty rate for older adults was far higher than the figure for the country's entire population at 14.9 percent or for those aged between 18 and 65 at 10 percent.

The rate was also high in comparison to OECD member countries' figures.

According to OECD data, the relative poverty rate for people aged 66 or older in Korea stood at 40.4 percent in 2020, far higher than the OECD average of 14.2 percent.