Research Reports
Social Safety Net for the Rural Elderly and Policy Improvement Measures
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AuthorPark, Daeshik
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Publication Date2006.11.01
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Original
The purposes of this study are to analyze current social safety net for the rural elderly, and to suggest policy improvement measures to improve the social safety net.
The major research methods include the collection of existing related data, field survey, in-depth interview, and so on. Existing data were collected from related governmental organizations and research institutes. The field survey was conducted among 1,000 elderly residents (aged 65 or older) of 50 rural areas, asking them about their economic activities and social safety. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentage, and means and cross-classification tables were used to summarize the data of the field survey.
According to the field survey, 43.2% of the respondents answered that they were participating in farming. Most elderly farmers (83.3%) expressed their intentions to continue farming. Only a small percentage (11.0%) of the respondents answered that they were participating in non-farm economic activities. About two thirds of the respondents had the annual household incomes of 10 million won or less. The average annual household income of the respondents was 8,280,000 won.
In the case of the first social safety net (social insurance), the pension recipient ratio was 20.2%. The medical insurance non-recipient ratio was 18.9%. The recipients of employment insurance and industrial accident compensation insurance were very few. In the case of the second social safety net (public assistance), the proportion of recipients in the national basic livelihood security system was only 11.2%. In the case of the third social safety net (urgent support system), most respondents (95.2%) did not know the urgent supporting system.
The welfare services that the government must expand and help the rural elderly with priority are cash supports, public medical services, and residential home care services.
The basic policy directions to improve the social safety net for the rural elderly are as follows: 1) A participatory and productive welfare paradigm is necessary. 2) A legal system to reflect the characteristics of the rural elderly should be prepared. 3) The welfare budget for the rural elderly should be expanded. 4) The management of welfare business transferred to local governments should be reinforced. 5) The delivery system of social safety net for the rural elderly must be reorganized. 6) The blind spot zone problem of social safety net should be solved.
Researchers: Park, Dae Shik and Choi, Kyeong Hwan
Research period: 2006. 1 - 2006. 11.
E-mail Address: pds8382@krei.re.kr
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