For the first time in 12 years fewer than 100 North Koreans are defecting to South Korea every month.

North Korea watchers point to tougher crackdowns along the border with China since Kim Jong-un took power but also to rising living standards thanks to burgeoning open-air markets in the socialist state.

The Unification Ministry says 978 North Korean defectors were debriefed by South Korean intelligence in the first 10 months this year or an average of 98 a month.

Monthly defector numbers first rose above 100 in 2003, when they hit 107. A Unification Ministry official said the total this year is expected to remain below 1,200.

Last year's figure was 1,400, and the highest was 2,914 in 2009.

Lee Soo-seok of the Institute for National Security Strategy said, "The spread of open-air markets has reduced the number of North Koreans who live on the edge of starvation, and tightened security along the Chinese border has made it more difficult to defect."

As of the end of October, 28,497 North Korean defectors had settled in South Korea. Mass defections occurred during the famine from 1995 to 1998, which was largely the fault of then leader Kim Jong-il's addle-brained military-first doctrine.

Pouring every cent into nuclear and other arms development, the regime triggered an acute food shortage that caused an estimated 2 million North Koreans to starve to death during the period.