• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.93-104
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• 2014

This study examined housing costs and housing affordability of young college graduate renters in the Capital Region of Korea using microdata of the 2012 Korea Housing Survey (KHS). A licensed microdata set of 2012 KHS was obtained on September 29, 2012 from the official KHS Website and analyzed statistically. I selected 93,795 young college graduate renters between 20 and 29 years of age in the Capital Region and compared their housing costs across income levels and tenure type. Major findings were as follows: (1) Jeon-se deposit was on average 3.1 times the annual household income and monthly renters' deposit was 7.1 times the monthly household income; (2) households in higher income groups tended to pay a larger deposit and/or monthly rent; however, households with a lower income were found to pay a greater proportion of income to housing costs than households with a relatively higher income; (3) a total of 64% of all young college graduate renters had housing cost burdens to pay 30% or more of their income for housing, and more than 78% of the low-income households were found burdened; and (4) after housing cost payments, low-income households had less than one million KRW left to spend on other needs and savings; in addition, some low-to mid-income households had zero or even minus income left after housing cost payments.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.67-76
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• 2023

Objectives: Previous studies have reported that people with disabilities are more likely to be impoverished and affected by excessive medical costs than people without disabilities. Public transfer income (PTI) reduces financial strain in low-income households. This study examined the impact of PTI on catastrophic health expenditures (CHE), focusing on low-income households and households with Medical Aid beneficiaries that contained people with disabilities. Methods: We constructed a panel dataset by extracting data on registered households with disabilities from the Korea Welfare Panel Study 2012-2019. We then used a generalized estimating equation model to estimate the impacts of PTI on CHE. A subgroup analysis was carried out to assess the moderating effects of family income levels and health insurance types. Results: As PTI increased, the odds ratio (OR) of CHE in households that contained people with disabilities decreased significantly (OR, 0.92; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.89 to 0.94; p<0.001). In particular, PTI effectively reduced the likelihood of CHE for low-income households (OR, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.81 to 0.89; p<0.001) and those who received medical benefits (OR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.68 to 0.89; p<0.001). Conclusions: This study highlights the positive effect of PTI on decreasing CHE. Household income and the health insurance type were significant effect modifiers, but economic barriers seemed to persist among low-income households with non-Medical Aid beneficiaries. Federal policies or programs should consider increasing the total amount of PTI targeting low-income households with disabilities that are not covered by the Medical Aid program.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.37-50
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• 2012

This research was conducted for the analysis the middle-old aged empty nest households' debt holdings and their financial status(emergency fund index, liquidity index, debt burden index) considering the level of income and assets. In order to accomplish this study, we made use of the KReIS third beta-version data. The results of the analysis were as follows. First, in all income asset groups there were more non-debts holding houses compared to debt holding houses. Moreover in debts holding houses, compared to other groups high income high assets groups were more. Second, the households that possessed more assets, had more debts. Third, the financial status of the households holding debts were more vulnerable compared to households that had no debts. Moreover, all income asset groups' emergency fund index were low. Households having no debts possessed low real assets and so the liquidity index was higher in holding debts households. In holding debts households, debt burden index was high. And especially these houses suffered from high debt burden when their income and asset were low.

• Korean Journal of Rural Living Science
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.73-84
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• 1995

The objective of this thesis is to analyse empirically the economic resource problems of the rural poor households. Data from 444 rural sample households in four provinces, divided into two subgroups, the poor and the non-poor households, were analysed and compared. The owned arable land size, level of agricultural and non-agricultural income, assets, debts and the sufficiency of living expenses of the poor households were measured and compared with those of non-poor households respectively. The significant findings and drawn conclusions are as follows : The rural poor households 1. tends to show smaller family size, older age and lower level of education of homemakers than the non-poor households, that might work as constraints to income sources and quality. 2. has not only small arable lands and agricultural income but also even smaller cash income, less than 50% of total income, with 27% of self-product consumption and depends more on non-agricultural income than the non-poor households. Such weakness of income structure might cause and increase the income instability of the rural poor households. 3. reveals significantly different level and components of assets from the non-poor households lower level of assets, less amounts of but more load of debt due to lower solvency that comes from low level of income and assets, higher debts for consumption and lower accessibility to credit. All these socio-demographic and economic characteristics of the rural poor households might have compound effects on the economic problems of the poor households and make vicious circle of poor.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.39-45
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• 2014

Energy poverty has been defined as low-income households who paid energy cost more than 10% of their ordinary income. Therefore, there are various subsidy programs focused on house remodeling for low-income households and one of them is the Home Energy Efficiency Assistance Program which have done by Korea Energy Foundation since 2007. The aim of the program is to improve the thermal performance of dilapidated dwellings and analyzed the detached house for the low-income households to develop the building typology. The database contained approximately 3,061 households which was obtained from the program in 2013 and the results of the study were like this; 1) For the shape of residential houses, the number of rectangular shaped building was higher than non-rectangular shaped ones. 2) For the orientation of buildings, the south layout of the detached housing was dominant to gain heating energy into buildings. 3) For the floor area, the average floor area was $44.2m^2$, although its size varied wide variations, which range from $6.3m^2$ to $107.1m^2$. 4) For the windows and doors, the south-facing window was larger than the other side. Finally it would be possible to determine the characteristics of residential houses for low-income families. A future study could establish typology of low-income housing that it would estimate the performance of each model building before and after the retrofit to improve the energy performance.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.552-565
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• 2016

This study aimed to examine the association between material hardship and alcohol use among low-income households in Korea, with particular attention to whether the association was mediated by family conflict and self-esteem. Using a nationally representative sample of 960 low-income households, this study conducted a path analysis to test a structural model liking material hardship to alcohol use through family conflict and self-esteem. The significance of indirect paths was tested by a Sobel test. This study found that experiencing material hardship was directly associated with low levels of coping skills for family conflict and low levels of self-esteem, but not with alcohol use. However, material hardship was indirectly associated with alcohol use through low levels of coping skills for family conflict as well as low levels of self-esteem. The findings of this study suggest that experiencing material hardship among low-income households would be a socio-structural stressor for alcohol use, particularly in that it increases secondary role and intra-psychic strains. Implications to address material hardship and alcohol use among low-income households were discussed.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.1-22
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• 2021

The effects of social distancing measures on income distributions and aggregate variables are examined with an off-the-shelf heterogeneous-agent incomplete-market model. The model shows that social distancing measures, which limit households' labor supply, can decrease the labor supply of low-income households who hold insufficient assets and need income the most given their borrowing constraints. Social distancing measures can therefore exacerbate income inequality by lowering the incomes of the poor. An equilibrium interest rate can fall when the social distancing shock is expected to be persistent because households save more to prepare for rising consumption volatility given the possibility of binding to the labor supply constraint over time. When the shock is expected to be transitory, in contrast, the interest rate can rise upon the arrival of the shock because constrained households choose to borrow more to smooth consumption given the expectation that the shock will fade away. The model also shows that social distancing shocks, which diminish households' consumption demand, can decrease households' incomes evenly for every income quantile, having a limited impact on income inequality.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.73-82
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• 2019

Objectives : The aim of this study was to explore the general characteristics and health risk factors of the low income single person household in elderly Korean population for target selection of Korean medicine public health promotion program. Methods : We collect the 826 low income over 65 years old participants data from 7th Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The demographic, life habit, health status, medical history were used to compare the difference between single and multiple low income senior households. Results : All variables except drinking and smoking were statistically significant between single and multiple low income senior households. The health risk factors in single low income senior households were gender, overweight, Medicaid, annual drinking habit, diagnosis of diabetes. Conclusions : Through this study, we found out that the overweight, monthly drinking habit, diagnosis of diabetes were health risk factors in low income senior single households.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.507-520
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to analyze the changes in the housing instability of low-income households through their residential mobility. The concept of housing instability is measured by taking into consideration of housing types, number of moves, period of homelessness, and housing affordability index. The result of this study shows that housing instability of low-income households owned their homes is mainly caused from their old housing built in at least 1980, and that of tenant households is due to the heavy burden of rent-to-income ratio. By using multinominal logit model, the study finds that low-income tenant households are more likely to move upwards as they are man-headed, aged and relatively high-income if we categorize residential mobility into four types: upwards, equivalent, trade-off, and downwards migration. Considering that the share of homeowners moving downwards increases while the share of tenants moving upwards decreases as they reside increasingly nearby Seoul, the study finds that low-income households living in big cities are no better off to improve their residential instability for themselves than the low-incomes in local small and midium cities. Furthermore, both low-income owners and tenants are less likely to move downwards as the ratio of single-family housing in former residence increases. Such finding has a policy implication that government needs to maintain affordable single-family housing stock rather than supplying excessive unaffordable multi-family housing in order to enhance residential instability of low-incomes households.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.125-145
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• 2011

The purposes of this study were to examine low-income households' financial statuses and the socio-economic characteristics of single-person and non-single person households according to the financial indexes used for evaluating financial security and growth status developed based on financial ratios. Using 2009 KLIPS(Korean Labor & Income Panel Survey) data collected by the Korean Labor Institute, the satisfaction levels from the indexes were analyzed and compared between the two household types. The results showed that 46.0% of single-person households were not satisfactory in terms of all financial growth indexes but were partially satisfactory in terms of all financial security indexes. These householders tended to be females and in the their 70s, who lived in Seoul or in a suburb of Seoul, Korea. They reported problems with a lack of financial growth possibilities. 47.0% of non-single person households were not satisfactory in terms of all financial growth indexes but were partially satisfactory in terms of all financial security indexes. These householders tended to be males in their 60s and 70s with no job who were living in Seoul or in a suburb of Seoul, Korea. They reported having low level of liquidity and high level of debt redemption. 42.6% of single-person households were not satisfactory in terms of both financial security and growth indexes partially. These householders tended to be females in their 20s or 70s who were living in rural areas. They reported problems related to an adverse balance between household income and expenditures and a large scale of debt. 43.1% of non-single households were not satisfactory in terms of both financial security and growth indexes partially. These householders tended to be males in their 60s or 70s and homeowners. They reported problem related to an adverse balance of household income and expenditures and high a level of housing expenditures and liquidity. The research findings have implication for policy makers considering financial support programs and welfare programs for low-income householders, considering the recent changes in households structures.