Another hurdle facing a new Korean nation is the fact that economic demographics are not on its side. Where as West Germany had a 5-1 population ratio advantage upon unification with the less developed East Germany, South Korea merely has a 2-1 ratio, which means that it will have to absorb a much larger portion of North Koreans into its demographics, which will place its social services, educational systems, and job retraining services under significant strain. There is also the issue of "severe division" between both Koreas. Throughout its separation, East and West Germany minimized repercussions of political division by maintaining trade links, as well as signing over 30 treaties. One estimate states an estimate of $1.5 trillion USD over thirty years to simply bring North Korea's GDP to a comparable level to East Germany's GDP gap with West Germany prior to German unification. It will likely take generations before the economic gap is evened between the two Koreas: The North-South economic gap remains in the United States since the end of its Civil War in 1865, in Italy, residents of Sicily today only have 1/3 the GDP of their counterparts in Milan, and even with its remarkable economic transformation, inland provinces continue to be left behind economically by the coastal provinces, a gap that is expanding annually, not decreasing.
There are also a number of additional areas in which investment must be made in order to successfully integrate Korea into a unified nation that would resemble some level of parity.