|
Korea Highest in Elderly Poverty: OECD
The Korea Times
November 8, 2008
South
Korea
Half of South Korea’s elderly households live in a state of “relative poverty,” whose income falls below 50 percent of the average household income of the nation.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a group of leading economies, the relative poverty ratio among the elderly people over the age of 65 in Korea was 45 percent in 2006, indicating almost one in every two elderly households live in poverty, Yonhap News reported Saturday.
The figure is the highest and is more than three times higher than the mean poverty rate among OECD countries, which stood at 13 percent.
No other OECD countries’ elderly poverty level exceeded 40 percent. Ireland trailed as a distant second with 31 percent.
The countries with the lowest elderly poverty line included New Zealand, The Netherlands, Czech, which were all at 2 percent, followed by Luxemburg (3 percent) and Canada (4 percent).
Observers here attribute South Korea's high elderly poverty rate to the rapid transformation of the family structure and an underdeveloped welfare system.
“South Korea didn’t have a social insurance system for elderly people because, by tradition, the grown-up children supported their old parents,” Yoo Kyung-joon, a researcher with the Korea Development Institute, said.
Yoo added that although Korea has started national pension system, the number of elderly who actually benefit from it is still relatively few.
Korea is aging quickly. Of its 49-million population, 7 percent are over the age of 65.
More
Information on World Elder Rights Issues
Copyright © Global Action on Aging
Terms of Use |
Privacy Policy | Contact
Us
|
