KDI - Korea Development Institute - RESEARCH - Research Areas

Summary

KDI FOCUS Assessing Old-Age Poverty with Income and Assets: Generational Insights and Policy Directions

Korea’s old-age poverty rate, based solely on income, ranks among the highest in the OECD. While the rate drops slightly when assets are considered, it remains persistently high. There are marked disparities in poverty rates across different elderly birth cohorts, with older groups facing higher rates. A greater share of the low-income, low-asset segment also marks the observed inequality. To effectively address poverty among the elderly, policy efforts should prioritize support for the oldest members of this vulnerable low-income, low-asset segment. Concurrently, financial assistance for seniors in the low-income, high-asset group should be scaled back. A practical move toward this direction would be revising the eligibility criteria for the Basic Pension to include asset-inclusive pensionable earnings.

- Korea’s old-age poverty rate was 43.4% in 2018, the highest among OECD countries (average 13.1%).

- The old-age poverty rate varies markedly across the five elderly generations, with those born in the 1940s or earlier having the highest rates.

- The recent decrease in the old-age poverty rate and the disparities seen across age cohorts can likely be attributed to the growing proportion of individuals born in the 1950s who tend to be less impoverished.

- Given the nascent state of public transfers in Korea, asset accumulation is the likely channel of retirement planning, meaning income alone does not provide a complete picture of old-age poverty.

- When incorporating both income and assets into the analysis, the old-age poverty rate determined by asset incomization is markedly lower than that derived from income alone but remains elevated.

- Korea’s old-age poverty rate, evaluated using both income and assets, still ranks among the highest in the world.

- When incorporating assets into the analysis, the share of the low-income, low-asset varies significantly across generations, particularly among those born in the 1940s and earlier.

- The difference in levels of old-age poverty across generations can be attributed to the intergenerational income disparity caused by rapid economic growth and the differing maturity levels of retirement security systems for each generation.

- To provide targeted assistance for the most vulnerable, the Basic Pension should be based on asset-adjusted pensionable earnings, reducing the support for seniors in the low-income, high-asset category.

Summary

KDI FOCUS Addressing the Prolonged Pension Gap

As the age for National Pension eligibility rises, creating an income gap, many older people typically offset this by increasing their labor earnings, studies suggest. Those facing a pension gap tend to increase earnings without an accompanying rise in poverty or reduction in consumption. However, households with excessive medical expenses struggle to fully offset the reduced pension, as increased labor income doesn't completely make up for the pension shortfall. Given the ongoing upward trajectory of the pensionable age, meticulous monitoring of elderly employment trends and bolstering support for prolonged employment are of paramount importance. For immediate relief, older households, constricted by caregiving obligations and facing labor supply limitations, require further reinforcement through targeted support programs.

- Increasing the National Pension eligibility age can bolster the fund's financial viability. However, without adequate income supplementation during the pension gap, this change may potentially escalate poverty rates and diminish the quality of life among older individuals.

- The goal of raising the pensionable age is twofold: to reduce long-term pension benefit expenditures by postponing the commencement of pension benefits, and to encourage labor market participation among the elderly.

- In response to the extended pension gap, pensioners supplemented their income through work. Consequently, no significant changes were observed in either the average household income or poverty rates.

- The increase in pensionable age has not significantly impacted household consumption expenditures.

- Households with medical expenses exceeding the median level struggled to counterbalance the decline in public pension income. They faced constraints in amplifying their labor income during the pension gap period.

- Generations impacted by the elevated pensionable age have navigated the pension gap by boosting their labor earnings, compared to unaffected cohorts. Consequently, no alterations were observed in their poverty rate or consumption expenditures.

- Continual monitoring of employment trends among the elderly, alongside the enhancement of employment extension support and reemployment services for middle-aged and senior populations, is crucial given the anticipated future extension of the pension gap.

- The promotion of a phased retirement system, linked to a partial pension scheme, is essential for encouraging long-term employment.

- Efforts must be made to address deficiencies in the disability pension system in order to strengthen income supplementation for individuals unable to work due to injury or illness.

- Appropriate care services should be provided for elderly households facing significant caregiving burdens for sick household members.

Summary

Research Monograph KOR Providing Social Protection for Self-Employed Workers

This study examines whether expanding the pool of beneficiaries for unemployment insurance (UI) to the self-employed is a way to ensure better social protection. First, we document the self-employed’s income variability, job security, and job transition paths after a business closedown, also comparing these factors to wage earners. Second, we use model simulations to analyze the effects of mandatory UI for the self-employed on labor market tightness, fiscal soundness, and self-employment rate.

Our comparison of the self-employed and wage-earning employees, based on the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) and the Survey of Household Finances and Living Conditions (SHFLC), yields the following findings: (1) the self-employed are constantly exposed to fluctuations in business income, which may lead to business failure; (2) there is no substantial difference between the self-employment duration of the self-employed and the employment duration of full-time employees; and (3) a significant number of self-employed individuals choose to start new businesses after their previous businesses close down.

Such results imply that the government may increase the coverage rate of the self-employed by increasing the unemployment benefit level or decreasing the contribution level without harming fiscal soundness. However, establishing an income verification system for the self-employed should proceed or coincide with expanding insurance coverage for self-employed workers to address pertinent concerns, including adverse selection due to lack of income information and moral hazard due to the difficulty of evaluating involuntary business cessation. Moreover, additional assistance is necessary for the self- employed who re-start businesses after closedown.

This study employs a model-based approach to estimate the impact of UI on entrepreneurs. Building on the standard search and matching framework, it incorporates the decision-making processes of entrepreneurs. A model-based approach offers several advantages, enabling analyses of the direct effects of policy changes on the economy and the indirect effects through entrepreneurs’ adjustment to those changes. Our results suggest that extending UI to self- employed entrepreneurs would lead to increased business closures and reduced hiring, causing a slack labor market and higher unemployment. This, in turn, would put pressure on the UI budget, and social welfare would decrease overall. Longer duration of unemployment and reduced government transfers offset increased welfare for former entrepreneurs from receiving UI benefits. However, the study also finds that social welfare can be improved by the government subsidizing UI contributions for entrepreneurs, especially when targeted financial support is provided to low-income entrepreneurs. In that case, UI for entrepreneurs achieves greater social welfare improvement than other social protection systems, such as unemployment assistance.

Summary

Policy Study KOR The Impact of Increase in Pension Age on Employment, Income and Consumption

Due to population aging and a relatively low contribution rate relative to high pension payments, a pension fund in Korea is financially unstable. To improve financial stability, the Korean government passed a law in 1998 that gradually increased the pension age from age 60 to 65 between 2013 and 2033. The purpose of the reform was to prolong the retirement age and delay the pension payment among the elderly. However, as the statutory retirement age has remained at age 60 since 2016, the gap between the statutory retirement age and pension age has widened. This widening gap has brought the need to explore whether and how people have been supplementing their income and consumption in the time of income crevasse.

This paper uses cohort discontinuity regression to estimate the impact of the increase in the pension age on employment, income, and consumption in Korea by using a discontinuous jump in the pension age from 61 to 62 between the 1956 and 1957 cohorts. It finds that an increase in pension age from 61 to 62 leads to a rise in labor income and does not lead to a drop in disposable income and consumption at age 61, despite the decrease in pension amount. However, a heterogenous effect depends on the family characteristics, such as the rate of medical expense out of total consumption expenditure and the education level of the household head. In particular, the labor income of families with high rates of medical expense out of total consumption did not increase despite the decline in pension amount. Along with the decreased business and property income, they experience a drop in disposable income. Moreover, a family with a household head in high school but without a college degree does not increase the labor income. Along with the decline in business and property income, they experience a drop in disposable income and consumption.

These results suggest that the vulnerable group from the increase in pension age policy might be the family who can-not extends labor participation due to health problems or the care-giver burden of the family member with the health problem. Moreover, the vulnerable group from the increase in pension age in Korea might not be the lowest and highest education group but instead those in the middle.

This paper suggests the following policy implication. First, the government needs to provide an income supplement to those who can not extend their employment in the period of income crevasse due to health problems and provide care-giving service to those who can not participate in work due to the care-giving burden between the statutory and pension age. Secondly, the government might want to implement a partial pension system that allows receiving early pension partially, which gives more flexibility in combining work and pension. Thirdly, to reduce the gap between the statutory age and pension age, the government might want to gradually extend the re-employment system while transforming the seniority-based wage system into one that reflects the productivity and task of the person's job. Fourth, the government might want to enhance the job-training program for the elderly by evaluating the program's effectiveness and grasping the need of both the employer and employee's side.

Summary

KDI FOCUS Building a New Safety Net for Sick Workers

The effective rollout of the Sickness Benefits as a social safety net for sick workers hinges on sick leave readily accessible in the workplace. To that end, sickness benefits should include assistance for firms vulnerable to extra costs incurred by sick leave. Also, the level of sickness benefits should be differentiated based on the duration and severity of illness or injury. To ensure the sustainability of Sickness Benefits, the scheme further requires measures to strengthen medical certification and to support workers’ return to work after a spell of sick leave.

- In the aftermath of COVID-19, Korea is pushing for a homegrown model of sickness benefits, but its scheduled pilot project seems to fall short as an effective safety net for sick workers.

- For the sickness benefit scheme to operate effectively, it is crucial to have institutional backing that allows workers to take time off work, such as short-term and longterm sick leave.

- Of regular workers in business establishments with 300+ employees, 72.2% are eligible for sick leave, contrary to only 7.1% for nonregular workers in businesses with fewer than 30 employees. This finding indicates a considerable gap in sick leave entitlements among workplaces of different sizes and job security.

- Amidst the disparity in accessibility to sick leave, there exists a health gap between regular and nonregular workers, and the systemic health divide goes further among non-regular workers by contract types.

- Exposure to harmful working conditions with potential negative health impacts shows systematic disparities depending on employment type.

- For sickness benefits to effectively protect vulnerable workers,the establishment of a sick leave system and the improvement of workers’ health and working environment are necessary.

- Workers with the experience of hospitalization, which defines health shock in this study, are found to experience a continued decline in their employment and income afterward.

- In particular, a prolonged decline in earnings is most pronounced among displaced workers by sickness, which suggests the need to support them to remain connected to the labor market, coupled with financial assistance.

- As workers experience varying impacts on their employment and income depending on the severity of sickness, the benefit coverage for those suffering from serious diseases needs to be further expanded for safety nets to provide more practical support.

- While improving the receptivity of employers by providing financial assistance to employment costs incurred by its adoption, unpaid sick leave, at least, should be made into law to prevent the sickness benefit scheme from operating in two modes.

- Repeated receipt of sickness benefits for shortterm minor sicknesses should be discouraged by applying different income replacement ratios per the severity of illness. At the same time, long-term severe diseases should receive more robust protection in the safety net.

- Stringent medical certification is required to mitigate the moral hazards of sickness benefits.

- The benefit scheme should add workability evaluation in its medical certification to move toward an active labor market policy that promotes returning to work.

Summary

Research Monograph KOR Redesigning Safety Nets as a Response to New Challenges

The safety net faces new challenges. Non-regular workers are increasing with diversifying forms of employment, but the current safety net does not protect these new types of workers. The COVID-19 crisis highlights the lack of protection for these workers in our existing safety net. Also, the transition to a digital and eco-friendly economy is expected to trigger drastic changes in jobs and put burdens on the most vulnerable workers, which requires strengthening the safety net.

This study examines the limitations of the current safety net in rapidly changing economic and social conditions and provides ways to restructure it in response to new challenges. This study consists of four chapters: income support system, employment safety net, adult education and training, and safety net for sick workers. These four fields have revealed major problems in the COVID-19 crisis and need to be addressed and strengthened to build a comprehensive safety net.

Chapter 1 examines the effectiveness of the income support system during the COVID-19 period and provides an overall evaluation of the system in terms of inclusiveness, poverty reduction, economic responsiveness, and consistency. Chapter 2 analyzes what causes blind spots in the employment safety net and estimates a structural model, including unemployment insurance for the self-employed and unemployment assistance, to suggest policies for a comprehensive employment safety net. Chapter 3 investigates the characteristics of users and non-users of adult education and training voucher programs and examines why the most vulnerable groups in need of the programs do not use vouchers. Chapter 4 analyzes the state of the safety net supporting sick workers and examines the impact of health shock on employment and income to provide implications for the design of sickness benefits.

These four chapters share a common concern about the safety net's wide blind spots, especially for vulnerable workers, and discuss policy tasks. First, the employment safety net does not provide protection for temporary, non-regular workers and the self-employed due to limited unemployment insurance coverage. Also, income support programs for the working-age group are not responsive to economic needs, and support against economic difficulties is insufficient. This study suggests strengthening unemployment assistance for the low-income and vulnerable workers to enhance the inclusiveness and economic responsiveness of the safety net. Second, although anyone can participate in adult education and training institutionally, the actual participation rate of the vulnerable is low. This study points out that it is important to induce their actual participation, not simply an external expansion. Third, insecure workers are less likely to access sick leaves than secure workers. Due to the disparity across workers, sickness benefits under discussion for adoption may also have practical blind spots for vulnerable workers. This study discusses policies that need consideration when designing sickness benefits to provide a secure safety net for sick workers.

Summary

Policy Study KOR A Study on Effective Innovation Policy: Focusing on Vaccine R&D

Vaccines can be an effective means to cope with infectious diseases from a social point of view, but investment by private firms in the development of new vaccines could be suboptimal. First, this study briefly discusses a typical vaccine development process and the characteristics of a vaccine product to explain the causes of this market failure.

Next, this study analyzes the optimal use of ‘push incentives’ and ‘pull incentives’ to enhance R&D incentives for a vaccine development firm. More specifically, here, push incentives can lower R&D costs and alleviate the firm’s financing constraint (regardless of R&D result); pull incentives can raise the level of reward from a successful R&D result. This study shows that (i) it is optimal to use only push incentives if the firm faces severe financing constraints, and the social planner’s budget is relatively small; (ii) It is optimal to use both push and pull incentives if the firm faces severe financing constraints, and the social planner’s budget is relatively large; (iii) It is optimal to use only pull incentives if the firm does not face any financing constraints; (iv) In cases where the rewards that the firm can obtain from a successful R&D result are quite limited (i.e., the market size is small), providing push incentives alone is not sufficient to enhance the company's R&D incentives.

Lastly, after examining vaccine R&D support policy in Korea and a few other foreign countries, this study provides relevant policy implications, including the circumstances under which providing pull incentives play an important role, the need for a vaccine innovation policy for harmonious use of push and pull incentives, and institutional improvements required to use pull incentives more effectively.

Summary

Journal of Economic Policy KDI Journal of Economic Policy, February 2021

How do Export Pioneers Emerge and How are They Related to Product Creators? / Chin Hee Hahn

In this paper, we empirically examine how export pioneers emerge and how they are related to product creators/innovators, utilizing a rich plant-product level dataset from the Korean manufacturing sector for the period of 1990-1998. Our analysis covers the process from the appearance of product creators as well as product imitators to the emergence of export pioneers. We find, first, that product imitators are larger, more productive and older than product creators. Second, most export pioneers are nevertheless found to be product creators. This result is largely due to the fact that almost all export pioneers export the products in the same year as product creation. Third, there are similarities as well as differences between product creators and export pioneers. Plants that are more productive or larger are more likely to become product creators as well as export pioneers. However, previous exporting experience positively affects the probability of export pioneering only, while plants’ engagement in R&D positively affects the probability of product creation only. We discuss possible explanations for our main empirical results as well as their policy implications.

Measuring the Impact of a Trade Dispute with a Supply-side Shock Using a Supply-driven Input-Output Analysis: Korea-Japan Dispute Case / Dongseok Kim

The purpose of this paper is to measure the impact of the recent Korea-Japan trade dispute on the Korean economy using supply-driven input-output analysis. In July 2019, Japan announced the decision to tighten the export control of three materials which are indispensable in the manufacturing of semiconductors and electronic display panels. Japan’s decision directly affects production in Korea’s semiconductor and display sectors and is hence not a demand shock. For this reason, a standard demand-driven input-output analysis is not valid despite the fact that it can still be applied. The impact of Japan’s decision on Korea’s aggregate and individual sectors’ gross output, GDP and employment were computed using both methods.

Trade Liberalization and Manufacturing Productivity Changes in Korea during the Past Three Decades / Yeongkwan Song

The main objective of this study is to determine whether there have been TFP increases in the Korean manufacturing sector due to trade liberalization since the 1990s. Based on the methodology proposed by Pavcnik (2002), which focuses on the channel through which trade liberalization measures enhance overall industrial productivity by triggering the exit of low-productivity firms, this study tests the following two hypotheses: first, the TFP increase in the Korean tradable industry is not higher than that in the non-tradable industry, and second, plants with lower TFP levels did not exit from the tradable industry. Through the rejection of these two hypotheses, it is possible to infer indirectly the effect of trade liberalization on firm productivity rates in Korea since the 1990s. First, this analysis reveals that since the 1990s, the TFP of the tradable sector compared to the non-tradable sector presented a statistically meaningful increase only in the 2000s, when China joined the WTO and trade increased sharply between Korea and China. Secondly, TFP growth in the tradable sector was positively affected by exits, as it was plants with lower TFP levels that ceased to exist.

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