The purpose of this study is to analyze the work and living conditions of middle and old-aged people in Korea and OECD countries, and to establish a labor and welfare policy system for middle and old-aged Koreans and presents policy alternatives. In K ...
The purpose of this study is to analyze the work and living conditions of middle and old-aged people in Korea and OECD countries, and to establish a labor and welfare policy system for middle and old-aged Koreans and presents policy alternatives. In Korea, the difficulty of middle and old people's livelihoods has become another important "social risk," and this social risk will become more serious in the future. If so, measures against social risks faced by middle-aged people should be newly added as an important program in the social security system. In accordance with this awareness of the problem, this study seeks to develop a social security system for the stability of the livelihood of middle-aged people.
The main focus of this study is as follows. Using micro panel data, to analyze the work and living conditions of middle and old-aged people in Korea, the U.S., Sweden, and Germany. To analyze government policies for middle-aged people in these 4 countries. To evaluate the policy effectiveness of the 4 countries. To establish a labor welfare policy system for middle and old people in Korea and propose policy alternatives.
The analysis is based on the Longitude Study of Age (KLoSA) in Korea, Health and Retirement Study (HRS) in the United States, Survey of Heath in Sweden and Germany, and Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE).
Main results are as followings. In Korea, there are small number of pension recipients among senior citizens than other countries, and the income and asset gap between pension recipients and non-recipients was wide. Among pension recipients, public pensioners had the more income and assets. This difference is not caused by whether pension receipt are eligible or not, but because pension recipients have more income and assets than non-recipients since their working days and consequently have been able to be more faithful to their retirement. The dependence of the elderly in Korea on pensions will increase over time, but it is lower than that of the foreign countries subject to comparison, making it insufficient for most senior citizens to lead their old lives by pensions. And in the case of pensioners, there is a gap of years between retirement age and pension age. As a result, it is important for middle and old Korean people to ensure their retirement income to continue to exist in the labor market. This is more pronounced in women.
In the case of Korea, surviving in the labor market even after the retirement of the main job in the working age group plays an important role in ensuring retirement income compared to the foreign countries subject to comparison. In other words, Korea's labor and welfare regulations correspond to a labor-dependent system in which public income guarantees are weak even after the age of work and thus have to earn income on their own in the market. As a result, vocational training and job policies for senior citizens are more important than other countries. In addition, since public pensions alone are not enough to guarantee retirement income, retirement pensions need to play a role in ensuring retirement income. To this end, the retirement pension is required during working hours, and public intervention (participating in the retirement pension market by the National Pension Service as a retirement pension operator) is needed to guarantee a certain level of return on retirement pensions.