The Economic Determinants of Old-Age Poverty in South Korea: Evidence from Longitudinal Household Data

Gianna Giannelli () and Tamara Hegyi ()
Additional contact information
Gianna Giannelli: University of Florence
Tamara Hegyi: University of Florence

No 18488, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: In South Korea, nearly 40% of the elderly population lives in poverty, one of the highest rates in the developed world. As the country undergoes a rapid demographic transition and the share of older individuals increases, understanding the drivers of old-age poverty becomes increasingly important. We study the economic determinants of poverty among individuals aged 65 and over using eight waves of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging and the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study covering 2006-2020. We adopt a longitudinal framework and estimate fixed-effects ordered logistic regression models where poverty status is measured as an ordered outcome. The results show that living apart from one's children and residing in rental housing are associated with greater poverty. In contrast, co-residence with children, homeownership, and continued employment are strongly linked to lower poverty levels. Public transfers show no statistically significant association with poverty outcomes. These findings stress the importance of family co-residence, housing tenure, and labour market attachment in shaping old-age poverty in South Korea and suggest expanding housing support, employment opportunities, and strengthening social security coverage.

Keywords: population ageing; old-age poverty; Korea; social security; pension system; fixed-effects ordered logistic regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I32 I38 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp18488.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18488

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Fallak ().