• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.39
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• pp.157-179
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• 1999

This study is an empirical research to analyze how many private income transfers in Korea decrease poverty rate, to compare the effects of private income transfers' decreasing poverty rate with income classes. This study has utilised the Family Income and Expenditure Survey to estimate the poverty ratio in urban areas and Unemployment Household Survey which Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs has investigated at 1998. Majour findins are these. First, Sizes of private transfers incomes are much than that of public transfers incomes. The rates in receiving private transfers income are ten times higher than that in receiving public transfers income among urban worker's household. The mean of private transfer income are about six times larger than that of public transfer income among urban worker's household. Second, the effects of private income transfers' reducing poverty rates are not large. After private transfers, urbarn workers' households are about 10 per cent away from its poverty line, and unemploy households are only 3 per cent away from its poverty line. Third, especially, private income transfers are hardly reducing poverty rates among extreme poverty class. After private transfers, urban workers' households which their incomes are within low 5%, are not away from its poverty line at all.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.277-311
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• 2010

The powerful association between poverty and mental health has been recognized for many decades in the Western Countries. Despite growing poverty studies, there has been little attention to the association between poverty and mental health in Korea. In this article we examine the effects of the mental health on the poverty status transition. In this study we draw on nationally representative data from the The Korean Welfare Panel Study, to estimate the effects of depression and self-respects on the poverty status transition. Major findings are as follows. First, we find that there are mental health disparities between poor and non-poor classes. The mental health conditions of the poor are worse than the non-poor. Second, we find the strong correlations between the mental health and poverty status transition. Whether poor family exits poverty or not depends on the household head's mental health. Third, poverty experiences are different depending on the mental health conditions. To the mental ill-health family, the probabilities of poverty-exit are much lower and poverty duration is more long. Fourth, we find that family poverty status transitions are very significantly related with household head's mental health from the logistic model analysis. These findings suggest that there is a strong relationship between poor mental health and the experience of poverty in Korea. They also suggest that intervention programs to enhance the mental health of the poor are needed in order to reduce the poverty problem in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.167-194
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• 2004

This paper examine the gender-poverty gap and the feminization of poverty in Korea with using data from the National Survey Household Income & Expenditure(1996, 2000) and the Urban Survey Household Income & Expenditure(1996-2002) by Korea National Statistical Office. The poverty rate in 2000 was 16.9 percent for female-head families and 7.9 percent for male-head families, which means that female-head families were 2.6 times more likely to be poor than male-head families. With examining impact of economic crisis in 1998 on gender-poverty gap, it show that both the poverty rate of female-head and male-head increase radically in peak of economic crisis, while, in the stage of recovering economy, the poverty rate of male-head families recovered mostly the level before economic crisis, but that of female-head families recover only the 2/3 level before and the 1/3 remain still under poverty. Thus gender-poverty gap appeared bigger during passing through economic crisis. With analyzing on influence factors of poverty, it appear that poverty is influenced by gender itself as well as education level, working condition which is reflected substantially characteristics of gender. Such an analysis results mean that the considering gender dimension is necessary to resolve poverty fundamentally because gender is a point intersection among family, labour market, and social security. Therefore it appears certain that to develop and adopt of women-friendly social policy is effective approach, which could resolve poverty and social problems related to social rights.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• no.36
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• pp.175-202
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• 2008

This paper analyzes the relationship between social assistance and poverty in Korea. Social assistance in Korea which had a Poor Law tradition for about forty years, was finally reformed and a new general assistance scheme designed to protect fundamental human rights, was established in 1999. Are the means-tested social assistance benefits effective in protecting the poor from hardship? How effectively do the means-tested benefits reduce poverty? To assess the effects of the means-tested social assistance benefits in Korea on poverty reduction, the study uses household data from the National Basic Livelihood Security Programme Review Board (NRB). Moreover, to obtain a comparative perspective, a British dataset the Family Resources Survey (FRS) is assessed. The incidence and the intensity of poverty for a range of household types are analyzed before and after social assistance benefits for both countries. The results of the analysis show the Korean social assistance benefits do not radically alleviate poverty, although recipients' income positions are improved after social assistance transfers. Compared to Korea, Britain achieved marked success of means-tested social assistance benefits with a high degree of effectiveness, especially among the extreme and the severe poverty brackets, while there are variations between different household types regarding the incidence and the intensity of poverty before and after transfer.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.67 no.4
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• pp.31-50
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• 2015

This study attempted to empirically investigate the determinants of poverty transition of the working poor with disabilities from a dynamic perspective. Analyses were conducted on the data from Panel Survey of Employment for the Disabled(PSED, Year 1-6), included the households with a disabled head of household. The working poor were defined as the household of which income fell below 120% of the absolute poverty line among the households just described. As results, The 6-year mean poverty rate for the working poor with disabilities included in the analysis was 31.4%, approximately three times of the poverty rate of the total population and the working poor with disabilities were found to have greater difficulty with poverty exit once having fell into poverty than all households living in poverty. And it was found that the economic activity factor was the key determinant of in-work poverty. In addition, employment of the working poor with disabilities did not lead straight to poverty exit, and the quality, rather than the status of, employment was the key determinant of poverty exit. The implications of the findings of this study are that it is essential to increase decent jobs, expand the social safety net of the working poor with disabilities and establish poverty reduction measures for each class of the working poor with disabilities to exit from poverty.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.30-56
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• 2005

This paper used two threshold approaches to measure the equity in urban households' out-of-pocket payments for health care from 1997 to 2002, which developed by Wagstaff and van Doorslaer. One approach used catastrophic health expenditure, which means that payments exceed a 'pre-specified proportion' of total consumption expenditures or ability to pay and the other used impoverishment that they did not drive households into poverty. Indicies for 'catastrophic expenditure' captured intensity as well as its incidence and also the degree of which catastrophic payments occur disproportionately among poor households. Measure of poverty impact also captured both intensity and incidence. The methods applied with data on out-of-pocket payments from the Urban Household Expenditure Survey Incidence and intensity of catastrophic payments - both in terms of total household consumption as well as ability to pay - increased between 1997 and 2002, and that both incidence and intensity of 'catastrophic expenditure' became less concentrated among the poor, but more concentrated in 2001 than in 1997. The incidence and intensity of the poverty impact of out-of-pocket payments increased between 1997 and 2002. Health security system may not have provided financial protection against catastrophic health expenditure to low-income households, because of high user fee policy not considering income level. The policies alleviating catastrophic health payments among the poor need to be more developed, and two threshold approaches further evaluated on our policy context.

• Journal of Korea Planning Association
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.101-116
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• 2018

Paying an attention to the issue of energy poverty of low-income households and ensuing regressivity of energy consumption, this study empirically analyzes the effects of both household and housing characteristics on heating energy consumption in an integrated way and identifies their causal structure based on the 2016 Korea Housing Survey data provided by the Korean government. Multiple regression analysis shows that household income and deteriorated level of housing, such as age and degree of cracks have positive effects and floor area of housing has a negative effect on the heating energy consumption per unit area of housing (HECPUH). Path analyses further reveal that the direct effect of household income on HECPUH is offset by the indirect effects that are mediated by deteriorated level and floor area of housing, making the total effect statistically insignificant. As a result, there is no significant difference in HECPUH across all income strata, implying that low-income (high-income) households pay more (less) heating costs relative to their income level, since they reside in the houses with relatively low (high) energy efficiency. To deal with this regressive causal structure of energy consumption, a policy option is recommended to improve energy efficiency of low-income housing through the government assistance in its maintenance and repair.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.155-164
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• 2016

This study explored the characteristics, housing deficits and expectations for support programs of low-income renter households in housing poverty in order to provide housing policy development and improvement information. Microdata of the 2014 Korea Housing Survey was utilized as secondary data for this study. A total of 2,508,672 low-income renter households (weighted count) in the bottom 40% income ranks of entire general households living in private rental units were selected as study subjects. The major findings were as follows. (1) One point four percent of the subjects were living in non-house living quarters (e.g., shanties, vinyl greenhouses, container houses, and mud huts), 1.4% were in dosshouses, 9.9% were in basements, semi-basements or rooftop units, and 8.2% were in sub-standard units. (2) Among the households whose housing costs burdens were measurable, 75.7% were found to have housing cost burdens to pay 30% or more of their household income towards housing costs (rental costs and maintenance costs), but only 7.5% of the burdened households received a housing voucher. (3) Eighty-one percent were found to be in a housing poverty status as defined by the researcher; in addition, low-income renter households in housing poverty in Seoul tended to have a greater proportion of households headed by females, the elderly, and be persons with low-education or disabilities. (4) Households in housing poverty showed greater expectations for financial support and/or extended provisions of public rental housing than other low-income renter households.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.187-201
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• 2022

This study analyzed the dynamic changes in the energy poverty structure of all households, elderly households, and single-person households in Korea. To this end, a TIP curve was derived and the focus was on changes in energy poverty intensity and poverty incidence. For the data, annual and quarterly data on fuel costs from the National Statistical Office's Household Income and Expenditure Survey were used. And the results were presented using data from the first quarter, where the energy poverty problem can be prominent due to the high proportion of heating costs among the four quarters. As a result of the analysis, there was no clear improvement in poverty intensity and poverty incidence over time in the analysis of all households. However, the analysis of elderly and single-person households showed improvement in poverty intensity and poverty incidence over time. In particular, in the results of the analysis using the data for the first quarter, the poverty intensity and poverty incidence of elderly and single-person households improved remarkably. In addition, the poverty intensity and poverty incidence of the elderly and single-person households were larger than the all households, and the energy poverty of single-person households was more severe than that of the elderly households.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.113-128
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• 1991

The purpose of this study was to analyze the environment of poverty children as reported by the children on a questionnaire. The conception of the environment was divided into the physical environment and the sociopsychological environment. The dimensions of the physical environment included household, cultural, and play conditions. The sociopsychological environment included structural (family values, family relationships, and the reinforcement system) and process variables(affect, care, and communication). For the purpose of this survey was administered to 122 children living in a poverty area and 102 children living in a middle-high income area. Statistics used for data analysis were frequency, distribution, percentile, mean and one-way ANOVA. Major findings showed that (1) The physical environment as reported by the poverty children was meager compared with that of children in the middle-high income area: the households were more overcrowded, and cultural conditions, play materials, and space was more limited. (2) The Structural conditions of the sociopsychological environment as perceived by poverty children were more material and physical than that of children in the middle-high income area: family values were oriented more toward materialism: family relationships were more negative and distant: and the reinforcement system was based more on material reward and physical punishment. (3) Process variables were perceived by poverty children as more laissez-faire and rigid; the parents neglected their children and communicated unilaterally more than the middle-high income parents. (4) Poverty children's perception of the causes of poverty and wealth were perceived as personal and social factors.