Registered hearing disability in South Korea, 2014-2025: national trends and regional disparities with a focus on Jeju Province

Age-related hearing loss, a prevalent consequence of global population aging, disproportionately affects rapidly aging societies such as Republic of Korea. In response, national policies have expanded support for hearing-aid use. However, despite the availability of national administrative statistics, systematic analyses of trends in registered hearing disability across demographic, regional, and subnational dimensions remain limited. This study combines administrative data from Korean Statistical Information Service for 2014 to 2025 with repeated cross-sectional microdata from the Survey of People with Disabilities to examine changes in the size, age structure, sex distribution, disability-type composition, and regional distribution of registered hearing disability, focusing on Jeju Special Self-Governing Province. Nationally, the number of people with registered hearing disability increased from 252,779 to 449,269, increasing their share among all registered disabilities from 10.1% to 17.1%. The proportion of registrants aged ≥75 years increased from 38.4% to 64.1%. In Jeju, the number of people with registered hearing disability increased from 4,321 to 6,834. In 2025, they accounted for 18.6% of all persons with registered disabilities in Jeju, compared with 17.1% nationwide, although Jeju ranked 16th among 17 regions by absolute count. Survey analyses showed increasing hearing-aid use nationally and in Jeju; however, Jeju had lower rates of regular medical care and health screening and a lower median household income than the national estimates in 2023. These findings indicate that the increasing burden of hearing disability should be addressed through regional strategies integrating otolaryngologic care, hearing-aid fitting and follow-up, communication support, and socioeconomic protection for older adults.