About a quarter of the people filing for bankruptcy in South Korea are the age of 60 or over, court data showed Friday.

The Seoul Central District Court said among 1,727 people who declared bankruptcy in January and February of this year, 428 were in their 60s or above, accounting for 24.8 percent of the total.

Though the figure is lower than those in their 50s and 40s, which account for 37.2 and 28.2 percents of the total, respectively, the number is clearly on the rise, according to the court.

"Working young people can pay back their debts, but it is not always the case for seniors," the court said, adding that the incomes of senior citizens are usually not enough to repay their debts. 

A rapidly aging population and a lack of preparedness for old age due to excessive spending on their children are key factors that lead to the increasing number of insolvents among the older age group, sources said.

The poverty rate among the elderly in South Korea is the highest among the 34 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, standing at 49.6 percent as of 2013. This is more than triple the OECD average of 12.6 percent.

"There is a need to increase the income of low-income elderly citizens and provide low interest loans to prevent them from going bankrupt," an official at the Hyundai Research Institute said. (Yonhap)