• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.301-322
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• 2013

By analyzing wave 1~11 (1998~2008) of Korean Labor and Income Panel Study(KLIPS) database, this study examines the effects of household characteristics and poverty duration on poverty exit. A special concern is to decide whether the decrease of poverty exit rates comes from true duration dependency or from the sample heterogeneity as poverty duration progresses. I also analyzed how the effects of independent variables are changed when unobserved heterogeneity is controlled. The results show that duration dependency disappears after controlling observed household characteristics and unobserved individual heterogeneity. This finding confirms that the apparent relationship between poverty exit rate and poverty duration is in fact a spurious association due to the sample heterogeneity rather than true duration dependency. In addition, the effects of household characteristics on poverty exit rate become more stronger when unobserved heterogeneity is controlled. Socioeconomic factors affecting poverty exit rates are such as householders' age, education, household composition, number of family members, labor force participation, and work status.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.57 no.2
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• pp.351-374
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• 2005

This study examines dynamics of poverty in Korea, focusing on poverty duration and its determinants. Data come from Korean Labor and Income Panel Study(KLIPS), 1998-2003. KLIPS is a longitudinal survey of 5,000 families and their members which are representative of urban residents in Korea. Respondents of KLIPS annually report detailed information on their income, economic activities, and other socio-economic characteristics. This study use poverty exit probabilities to generate distributions of spell lengths, following Bane and Ellwood(1986)'s methodology. This study finds a high level of poverty exit rates in Korea. About three quarters of those beginning a poverty spell exit from poverty within two years. Only 14.3 percent of all the poverty spells consist of long spells which persists five years or more. Yet, a different picture emerges when spells of the poor persons at a given time are analysed. Persistent poor occupy a considerable share of all the poor. Almost 50 percent of those who would be in poverty at a given time are in the midst of poverty spells lasting five years or more. When repeat spells of poverty are also included in the analyses, the proportion of long-term poor increases further. 63 percent of persons poor at a given time are long-termers. The majority of long-term poor are members of families headed by the aged. They show both a low level of poverty exit rates and a high level of reentry rates, and thus are most likely to experience long-term poverty. In the first place, they occupy a substantial share of all the poor. The second who are likely to be poor longer is members of families headed by non-aged women. Researchers have recentlty paid much attention to the working poor who have increased since the economic crisis in 1997. Yet, it is very likely that families headed by non-aged male who largely consist of the working poor temporarily experience poverty. Findings for this study suggest that further studies and policy proposals addressing persistent poverty are necessary.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.48
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• pp.113-149
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• 2002

The primary purpose of this study is to analyze the decreasing effect of public and private income transfers on poverty rate. Two year data of Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS, 1998, 1999) are used for the analysis, and 1/2 of median income and 1/3 of mean income are adopted to measure poverty rate. Although private income transfer contributes more to reduce the rate than the public transfer, the main effect for decreasing poverty rate is forced by the wage. Statistically significant variables that affect to the exit of poverty based on the logistic regression analysis are number of family members(-), wage(+), property income(+), social insurance benefit(+), and the transfer income(+). Therefore, the future policy should be more related with the active labor market policy for developing better human resources among the poor family.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.65 no.3
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• pp.183-206
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• 2013

Using Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (wave 1~11) database, this study analyzed the poverty duration of the poor as a whole and by households' characteristics. For this purpose, I first estimated poverty exit rates and reentry rates applying discrete-time hazard model to the sample, and then calculated poverty duration combining these two probability rates. The results show that about a half of poor households are transitory (short-term) poor with 1~2 years of poverty duration. A quarter is chronic (long-term) poor lasting for 5 or more years of poverty duration. The remained quarter can be categorized as the recurrent or mid-term poor. The socioeconomic characteristics of households greatly affect poverty duration. Long-term poverty is prevalent among female-head households, elderly households, single households, or households headed by a person with a lower level of education. If households' heads do not work, or work as temporary or daily-employed workers, the poverty duration tends to be longer. The findings suggest that the poor consist of various social classes with different characteristics. Efficient anti-poverty policy should be based on thoroughly identifying the specific characteristics and needs of each class.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.365-388
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• 2011

By analyzing 1998~2008 Korean Labor and Income Panel Study(KLIPS), this study examines socio-economic characteristics of people who become poor. The study also explores the reason why they are in the state of poverty. To find determinants affecting poverty entrance, discrete-time hazard models are applied. Major findings are as follows. The socio-economic characteristics driving people into poverty are in the middle way of the long-term poor and the non-poor, combining the characteristics of both groups. This implies that many cases of the newly poor tend to enter and exit from poverty repeatedly. Poverty entry rate was at a high level right after the economic crises, then was a downturn and remained fairly stable since 2000. However, the young, the high-educated, and even the professional are on the rise as a new poverty group. The major reason people become poor is temporary job loss. This factor is confirmed again by multi-variate analyses. In building anti-poverty policies, it is important to distinguish the long-term poor from the short-term poor. For the long-term poor, virtually the only affective policy will be income support. On the other hand, a labor-market strategy for jos security will be more effective for the short-term poor. The characteristics and determinants of poverty entry may affect poverty duration and exit in the future. Future research will be needed to investigate the relationship among these factors.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.59 no.3
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• pp.147-174
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• 2007

This study examines how path dependency of working poor labor market segmented from the primary and the secondary labor market affects employment and quality of employment of working poor. It Further examines how path dependency makes working poor to remain in the labor market and makes it difficult for them to escape from a vicious poverty cycle. Data is based on the $3{\sim}7th$ Korea Labor and Income Panel Study(KLIPS). Markov's transition probability and discrete-time hazard analysis are used for analysis. This study finds that Korea labor market is divided into three parts; the primary labor market, the secondary labor market and the working poor labor market. The proportion of employed poor has been reduced, but the proportion of non economically-active working poor has been increased and has become the main group among the working poor. This shows that labor demand of working poor is fundamentally lacking and there are structural barriers that block working poor's employment itself. The regression analysis shows that the longer working poor labor market participation is, the lower poverty-exit rate. This is an evidence of vicious poverty cycle that the poor have little chance to exit from working poor labor market, once they step into it. Therefore, the longer their participation in poor labor market, the more likely they would move only within the closed working poor labor market. Consequently, it is necessary to fundamentally reform labor market structure and to alleviate negative perception and discrimination about the poor labor while activating labor demand.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.64 no.3
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• pp.257-279
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• 2012

This study examined how employment status changes affects poverty transition of workable youth using 3years panel data from KoWePS(Korea Welfare Panel Study, 2007-2009). Findings and implications of this study as follows. First, although relative poverty rate of aged 18-34 is lower than other age groups, significant amount of youth experienced poverty once in 2007-2009(14.59%). This means that there are some of youth suffering for poverty and the aspect of youth poverty is very dynamic. Second, much of workable poor of youth had high level of education(45.9% in 2009) and they were unemployed or inactive in labor market(55.3% in 2009). These findings consistent with previous studies of youth poverty or youth employment. Third, workable youth who had changed employment status from employed to unemployed or inactive in labor market were likely to enter poverty and less likely to exit from poverty. Moreover youth who were non-standard employed had more possibility to be poor and less possibility to be not poor. These show that employment instability makes youth vulnerable to economic hardship, poverty. The result of this study suggest that anti-poverty programs which are related with the work-related programs and active labor market policy, should consider workable youth who have high level of human capital comparing other ordinary working poor. Because of much of youth are not poor in fixed time point, they can't be supported from existing social assistance program, like National Basic Livelihood Protection Program. As youth who experienced poverty in changing time need social support to prevent long-term poverty, government should contemplate adopting assistance program for workable poor youth.