This study investigates female poverty-headed and female single-parent households, their participation status of the economic activities, and other living conditions affecting them on the aftermath of recession. Through this research, we aim to examine the trends and the current status in relative social exclusion and evaluate the current main income support systems and the childcare policies from a gender perspective.
To this end, we analyze poverty incidence, poverty gap, the socio-demographic characteristics, and the relative deprivation status by using raw data from the National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure (as of 1996 and 2000), the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (as of 2006 and 2009) performed by the Statistics Korea, and the 4th wave of the Korea Welfare Panel Study (as of 2008) implemented by Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs. This study also examines the take-up rates in the National Basic Livelihood Security Institution (NBLSI), public pension systems including the National Pension and the Basic Old-Age Pension, and childcare services. Additionally, this study evaluates the effect of these systems on poverty reduction and presents the improvement measures for that.
The results of this study show that poverty incidence for the female-headed households in Korea has increased more rapidly and continuously than that for male-headed households after experiencing the two economic shocks since 1996. Moreover, although the poverty status is the most severe in the old-age female-headed households, the level of deprivation is the highest in single-parent households.
This study also finds that the poverty reduction effect of the social assistance is fairly high. However, it indicates that significant numbers of the elderly households has remained poor with no public support (the existence of the extensive no-care zone and its severity). Especially, women's inferior pension right in the National Pension system and low benefit level in the Basic Old-Age Pension system are shown to be major factors explaining relatively higher poverty incidence of the old-age female-headed households. Therefore, in order to alleviate poverty of the underprivileged, this study suggests that policy measures such as mitigating the problem of the no-care zone of the social assistance(NBLSI), enhancing the national pension right to women, and raising the benefit rates of the Basic Old-Age Pension are required.
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