Senior job seekers looking at a bulletin board containing information on job posts at a job fair held in the southeastern port city of Busan. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, April 15 (Korea Bizwire) — After the amount of basic pension benefits that are given to elderly people with an income lower than a certain level increased, their participation in the labor market decreased, a recent study showed.
Kim Hak-hyo (lead author), a student in the doctoral program at Sogang University and Kim Hong-kyun (corresponding author), an economics professor, released these results in a thesis published in the Journal of the Korean Association of Public Finance.
The authors analyzed what impact the increase in the amount of basic pension have on elderly people’s participation in the labor market.
The analysis showed that when the amount of basic pension benefits increased by about 100,000 won in 2014, elderly labor market participation declined by about 2.04 percentage points.
By age, the elderly people aged from 65 to 70 saw their labor market participation rate fall by about 2.82 percentage points.
However, the increase in the amount of basic pension benefits didn’t produce a significant impact on other age groups, including those aged from 71 to 75, 76 to 80 and over 81.
“Given that the chance for the elderly people aged over 70 to participate in the labor market is extremely limited, the results of the analysis showed that the impact of the increase in the amount of basic pension benefits on the elderly people’s labor market participation rate was not insignificant.” the authors said.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
