• Proceedings of the Population Association of Korea Conference
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• 2006.12a
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• pp.59-87
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• 2006

This paper explores the effects of the 1997 economic crisis on the pattern of socioeconomic differentials in fertility. Based on analysis of data from the 2003 Korea National Fertility Survey, this study focuses on recent changes in the level of fertility according to socioeconomic status of the couple including educational level, occupation, working status, income, etc. Results reveal that the level of fertility of those with the highest education, most prestigious occupation, and employer status are higher than those of the next group in the socioeconomic hierarchy. These findings imply that the straight line inverse pattern of socioeconomic differentials in CEB yielded to a reversed J-shaped curve. However, recent differentials of fertility after the economic crisis were found to contrast with the pattern above. Decrease in fertility has been most drastic among those with a high level of fertility, and relatively slow for those with a low level of fertility. The level of recent fertility turns out to be highest among those with upper-middle socioeconomic status, followed by those with the highest socioeconomic status and those with the lowest status. Policy implications and some comments on current population policies of the Korean government are also presented in this paper.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.28-34
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• 2001

Objectives : To investigate the changing pattern of medical utilization claims following the economic crisis in Korea. Methods : The original data consisted of the claims of the 'Medical insurance program of self-employees' between 1997 and 1998. The data was selected by medical treatment day ranging between 8 January and 30 June. Medical utilizations were calculated each year by the frequency of claims, visit days for outpatients, length of stay for inpatients, total days of medication, and the sum of expenses. Results : The length of stay as an inpatient in 1998 was decreased 4.7 percent in comparison to 1997. However, inpatient expenses in 1998 increased 10.8 percent as compared to 1997. Inpatient hospital claims in 1998 increased 6.2 percent over 1997, although general hospital inpatient claims in 1998 decreased 3.3 percent in comparison to 1997. The outpatient claim frequency decreased 7.3 in 1998 percent as compared to 1997 Outpatient visit days of in 1998 were decreased 8.5 percent in comparison to that recorded in 1997. Outpatient claim frequencies of 'gu region' in 1998 decreased 10.5 percent comparison to that in 1997, but 'city and gun region' decreased less than 'gu region'. Conclusions : Medical utilization in 1998 deceased in relation to 1997 Medical utilization by outpatients decreased more than that of inpatients. Medical utilization by 'gu region' decreased mere than the other regions.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.57-78
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• 2004

The economic crisis in $1997{\sim}1998$ caused massive unemployment and unprecedentedly increased the number of the poor in Korea. As many unemployed families fell into poverty, the poverty rate skyrocketed to higher than 10 percent. Not later than 2000, unemployment late got back to normal and real average income among urban households approached to the income level prior to the economic crisis. Although the economic crisis has been passed through, poverty was not decreased to the low level prior to the crisis by 2000. Why does it remain high? This study attempts to provide an answer to this question by analysing the poverty trend over the 1990s. Data come from the National Survey of Household Income and Expenditures 1991, 1996, and 20001. Results show that poverty was rapidly reduced in the first half period of the 1990s. This reduction in poverty is largely explained by steady and rapid economic growth. Modest improvement in income inequality also contributed. In contrast, the poverty rate considerably increased in the latter half of the 1990s. Average income was not fully recovered to its prior level, which reflected the economic crisis and the subsequent economic stagnation. Worsened income inequality led to higher poverty rate too. In addition, demographic changes increased the share of economically vulnerable types of families, such as families headed by single parents and the elderly. The most significant factor in explaining the higher poverty rate was extended income differential among non-elderly adults, while the next was the increased number of the elderly families. Yet, findings a little differ depending on which concepts of poverty to adopt. In the analyses based on the concept of absolute poverty, economic growth the most significantly affected the poverty trends in the 1999s. Changes in income inequality played the most important role in explaining the trend in relative poverty. Adopting the concepts of quasi-absolute poverty, which is preferred in this study, results show that rapid economic growth significantly reduced poverty in the first half of the 1990s and both worsened income inequality and stagnated economic growth increased poverty in the latter 1990s.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.345-356
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• 2007

This study deals with an early detection problem of structural change in won/dollar exchange market. A CUSUM algorithm is developed to monitor relevant economic variables indicating structural change in won/dollar exchange market. We applied the CUSUM algorithm to examine whether or not it was possible to alarm the 1997 economic crisis of Korea in advance.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.35-57
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• 2002

This paper investigates the employment and wage structural changes that have occurred around the economic crisis in 1997. We propose a theoretical model for external effects of human capital within firms and provide their estimation. When the employment and wage structural changes are considered simultaneously, labor demand decreases seem to more than offset labor supply changes during the period. While educational human capital, human capital accumulated with firm-tenure, human capital of married workers and of white-collar workers are considered to have positive external effects, human capital of relatively-old workers and managerial workers are considered to have negative external effects. We suggest that while employment restructuring with regard to age, tenure, and education and managerial workers during the period have improved the efficiency of firms, those with regard to married and white-collar workers have not.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.97-129
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• 2005

Korean society recently witnesses a rapid lllcrease of suicide across all ages. In particular, suicide in old ages jumps up ill a very unexpected way. Furthermore, the order of suicide in the cause of death across all ages is becoming higher and higher in Korea. This study provides details of suicide that occurs in Korean society with the comparison to that of Japan at the descriptive level. It is not well known why suicide in Korean surges recently. Several previous research show the possibility that surging suicide is closely related to the worsened economic conditions especially since the economic crisis in 1997. They adopt economic growth, unemployment rate, income distribution, household finance index as economic indicators in their research. This study also adopts those indicators and conducts a correlation analysis in two periods, 1990-1997 and 1998-2004. It is found that there is no correlation between economic indicators and suicide in the period of 1990-1997. On the other hand, there is a very strong correlation between income distribution and suicide in the period of 1998-2004. Other economic indicators except income distribution does not have any significant correlation with suicide. This finding suggests that currently increasing suicide in Korea may be a result of economic polarization, which has been worsened since the economic crisis in 1997.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.47-74
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• 2002

Since the Economic Crisis at the end of 1997, unemployment rate soared up to the record-high 8.6% (February 1999) and, for youth aged 15~29, it was 14.6% (27.8% for aged 15~19). In spite of economic recovery after the crisis, new participants in labor market at the school-to-work transition have faced with difficulties in finding their first jobs and, even further, the ratio of youth at out-of the labor force but not in school has remained at a higher level. It is important to calibrate the negative effects of nonemployment in the short-run as well as in the long-run, but there has been few study on the school-to-work transition in Korea. This study focus on the nonemployment duration to first job after formal education and comparison of its pattern before and after the crisis. A proportional hazard model, considering job prenaration before graduation (21.4% of the sample), with the semi-parametric baseline hazard is applied to the sample from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Survey(1998~2000) and its Youth Supplemental survey(2000). Interview of the Survey is conducted, by the Korea Labor Institute, to the same 5,000 household and 13,738 individual sample, guaranteeing nationwide representativeness. The Supplemental Survey consists of 3,302 young individuals aged 15 to 29 at the time of survey and 1,615 of them who are not in school and provide appropriate information is used for the analysis. The empirical results show that there exists negative duration dependence at the first three or for months at the transition period and no duration dependence since a turning point of the baseline hazard rate and that unemployment rate reflecting labor demand conditions has a positive effect on exiting the nonemployment state, which is inconsistent with a theoretical conclusion. Estimation with samples separated by the date of graduation before and after the crisis shows that the effect of unemployment rate on the hazard was negative for the pre-crisis sample but positive for the post-crisis sample.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.359-365
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• 2005

Objectives : An abrupt economic decline may widen the socioeconomic differences in health between the advantaged and disadvantaged in a society. The aim of this study was to examine whether the South Korean economic crisis of 1997-98 affected the socioeconomic inequality from all-causes and from cause-specific mortality between 1995 and 2001. Methods : Population denominators were obtained from the registration population data, with the number of death (numerators) calculated from raw death certificate data. The indicator used to assess the geographic socioeconomic position was the per capita regional tax revenue. Administrative districts (Si-Gun-Gu) were ranked according to this socioeconomic measure, and divided into equal population size quintiles on the basis of this ranking. The sex- and 5-year age-specific numbers of the population and deaths were used to compute the sex- and age-adjusted mortality rates (via direct standardization method), standardized mortality ratios (via indirect standardization methods) and relative indices of inequality (RII) (via Poisson regression). Results : Geographic inequalities from all-causes of mortality, as measured by RII, did not increase as a result of the economic crisis (from 1998-2001). This was true for both sexes and all age groups. However, the cause-specific analyses showed that socioeconomic inequalities in mortalities from external causes were affected by South Korean economic crisis. For males, the RIIs for mortalities from transport accidents and intentional self-harm increased between 1995 and 2001. For females, the RII for mortality from intentional self-harm increased during the same period. Conclusions : The South Korean economic crisis widened the geographic inequality in mortalities from major external causes. This increased inequality requires social discourse and counter policies with respect to the rising health inequalities in the South Korean society.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.103-139
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• 2002

Korean society has significantly changed with the onset of a dramatic economic crisis in 1998. From 2000, however, the Korean economy has recovered and currently Korea is enjoying a similar standard of living and economic growth as the pre-1998 levels. This study is a follow-up analysis, comparing the results examining the success attribution of Korean students and adults in 2001 with the results obtained before the economic crisis in 1997. Using the indigenous psychological approach, this study compares the similarities and differences in Korean students and adults' attribution of their personal success before and after the economic crisis. A total of 988 participants, consisting of 481 primary, junior high, senior high and university students and 507 adults (236 fathers and 271 mothers of the students) completed the questionnaire developed by Kim and Park (1998). The results indicate that students perceived their academic achievement and adults perceived successful family life as their most proud achievement. Successful family life included items such as academic success of children, healthy development of their children, and harmonious family life. The person who provided the most significant support for students were parents and for adults, it was their spouse. For students, the importance of friends' social support increased during the high school years. In terms of type of social support, emotional support was reported to be the most important for both students and adults. As for the reason for their success, majority of students and men reported self-regulation and for women, supportive family environment was reported as being the most important. Comparing 2001 results with the 1997 results, the importance of family increased after the economic crisis. Even with the dramatic economic crisis, however, some of the underlying pattern remain strong (such as importance of academic achievement for students, family life for adults, the importance of social support, especially emotional social support from family members, and believing that self-regulation would lead to success). The similar pattern of results obtain before and after the economic crisis indicate that the above results reflect a fundamental values and belief system deeply imbedded in Korean mentality.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.211-223
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• 2001

This study analyzed the financial ratio change of self-employed households between 1997 and 1998. The data were drawn from Korean Households Panel Study and utilitze7 descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentile to investigate the differences between two period of time, 1997 and 1998. The sampe size in 1997 was 692 householdsand and 600 households in 1998. The mean of financial asset showed that in 1997, self-employed households had much less in liquidity assets, especially in bank-related income, stock, but had more in real-estate, Gye, and private loan than those in 1998. In cases of debt-owned, the self-employed tended to have more debt in non-bank related and it illustrates that the self-employed may experience the difficulties to access the financial assistance in economic depression. Using guideline of each ratios, for six financial ratios, self-employed could meet less proper level$ in 1998 compared to those in 1997. It proves that the economic crisis affect the stability of income and financial assets of self-employed households and types of financial assets changes because of the stability.