Analysis of Issues in the Immigration Sector in Korea : Focusing on Topic Modeling

The number of foreign residents in South Korea has been steadily increasing. Given the pressing issues of low birth rates, an aging population, and labor shortages, proactive immigration policies are increasingly demanded. It is anticipated that the population of immigrants will continue to grow in the future as a means to address these challenges. This study aims to analyze the major issues in the immigration sector over the past decade. In particular, GPT-4 was used to analyze only articles containing “issues” as social problems, excluding simple promotional or information delivery articles. For this purpose, topic modeling was conducted focusing on the key issue raised in articles from the five major daily newspapers. Through this analysis, a total of 30 topics were identified, including 'discrimination and hate', 'managing illegal immigration', and 'victims of crime'. Hot topics such as 'low birth rates and aging population', 'labor shortages', and 'labor conditions', as well as Cold Topics like 'multicultural families', 'social integration', and 'access to services', were identified. These results indicate that the major issues in the immigration sector, which previously focused on multicultural families and support for them, have recently shifted to a broader perspective on the entire foreign population, with particular emphasis on foreign labor. Based on these findings, this study suggests several policy implications.