• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.37
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• pp.1-31
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• 1999

In Korea, little is known about unemployment duration and exit rate from unemployment. This paper empirically examines the duration of unemployment using data for the years 1996 and 1997 on unemployed individuals who are eligible for unemployment insurance benefits in Korea. A parametric survival model (log-normal model) is adopted to identify factors predicting transitions to reemployment. Factors that affect unemployment duration are sex, age, employment duration (year), prior salary, region, prior employment industry, cause of unemployment, officially determined unemployment benefit duration, degree of benefit exhaustion, and amount of benefits for early reemployment. However, education is not statistically significant In degree of benefit exhaustion, the exit rate from unemployment decreases as benefit exhaustion is approached. In amount of benefits for early reemployment, the exit rate from unemployment increases as amount of benefits increases. Hazards for reemployment gradually increase until 80 days after unemployment and gradually decrease in the following period. Thus, we find that distribution of hazards for reemployment has log-normal shapes between inverted U and inverted L This paper takes advantage of a unique analysis about unemployment duration and exit rate from unemployment in the Korean Unemployment Insurance system which functions as the most valuable social safely-net mechanism in the recent national economic crisis. Indeed, this paper provides a basic knowledge about realities of unemployed individuals in the Unemployment Insurance system and identifies research areas that require further study.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.1-44
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• 2018

This paper studies the macroeconomic effects of an enhancement in unemployment benefits in Korea. In particular, I quantify the welfare effect of two specific policy chances which have been mainly discussed among policymakers in recent years: increasing wage replacement rates by 10%p and extending maximum benefit durations by one month. To this end, I build and calibrate an overlapping generation model which reflects the heterogeneity of the unemployed and the specificity of the unemployment insurance (UI) system in Korea. The quantitative analysis conducted here shows that extending maximum benefit durations by one month improves social welfare, whereas increasing wage replacement rates by 10%p deteriorates social welfare. Extending maximum benefit durations is applied to potentially all the UI recipients, including unemployed workers whose wage before job loss is relatively low and whose marginal utility is relatively high. However, increasing wage replacement rates is applied to only a small number of UI recipients whose wage before job loss is relatively high, while the increase in the UI premium is passed onto all of the employed. This study suggests that given the current UI system and economic environment in Korea, it is more desirable to extend maximum benefit durations rather than to increase wage replacement rates in terms of social welfare.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.69-94
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• 2017

This paper re-examines the impacts an institutional arrangement may have on labour market outcomes such as the employment and unemployment rates. Based on the results from a generalized econometric model, the generosity of unemployment insurance benefits, organized labour and active labour market policy have effects on a labour market in line with previous findings. However, taxes on labour and the degree of employment protection are found to affect neither the employment rate nor the unemployment rate. Thus, some findings in this paper validate earlier findings, whereas others do not.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.55-83
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• 2007

This paper examines the welfare aspects of loan-based self-insurance against unemployment, and discusses the scope of government intervention in its provision. This paper deals with these issues in a model where the individuals may experience unemployment shocks frequently to leave little savings for retirement, so that the government may have to provide them with unemployment and retirement insurance benefits during their unemployment and retirement, respectively. We identify the two interesting features in the model: the externality that the self-insurance exerts, upon other social insurances, and the incentive of private sector to provide loans that exerts the externality upon other social insurances. In particular, this paper shows that, although the inefficiency associated with private loan warrants the government provision of loans to unemployed workers, the over-incentive of the private sector to offer loans may reduce the scope of the government intervention. This paper also shows that, unless the inefficiency associated with private loans is high, the private incentive for loans would reduce welfare because of the externality generated by private loans.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.131-169
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• 2010

I develop a matching model in which risk-averse workers face borrowing constraints and make a labor force participation decision as well as a job search decision. A sharp distinction between unemployment and out of the labor force is made: those who look for work for a certain period but find no job are classified as the unemployed and those who do not look for work are classified as those out of the labor force. In the model, the job search decision consists of two steps. First, each individual who is not working obtains information about employment opportunities. Second, each individual who decides to search has to take costly actions to find a job. Since individuals differ with respect to asset holdings, they have different reservation job-finding probabilities at which an individual is indifferent between searching and not searching. Individuals, who have large asset holdings and thereby are less likely to participate in the labor market, have high reservation job-finding probability, and they are less likely to search if they have less quality of information. In other words, if individuals with large asset holdings search for job, they must have very high quality of information and face very high actual job-finding probability. On the other hand, individuals with small asset holdings have low reservation job-finding probability and they are likely to search for less quality of information. They face very low actual job-finding probability and seem to remain unemployed for a long time. Therefore, differences in the quality of information explain heterogeneous job search decisions among individuals as well as higher job finding probability for those who reenter the labor market than for those who remain in the labor force. The effect of the extended maximum duration of unemployment insurance benefits on the aggregate labor market and the labor market flows is investigated. The benchmark benefit duration is set to three months. As maximum benefit duration is extended up to six months, the employment-population ratio decreases while the unemployment rate increases because individuals who are eligible for benefits have strong incentives to remain unemployed and decide to search even if they obtain less quality of information, which leads to low job-finding probability and then high unemployment rate. Then, the vacancy-unemployment ratio decreases and, in turn, the job-finding probability for both the unemployed and those out of the labor force decrease. Finally, the outflow from nonparticipation decreases with benefit duration because the equilibrium job-finding probability decreases. As the job-finding probability decreases, those who are out of the labor force are less likely to search for the same quality of information. I also consider the matching model with two states of employment and unemployment. Compared to the results of the two-state model, the simulated effects of changes in benefit duration on the aggregate labor market and the labor market flows are quite large and significant.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.135-145
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• 2019

Prolonged recession has caused the youth unemployment rate in Korea to remain at a high level of approximately 10% for years. Recently, the number of unemployed Koreans in their 30s and 40s has shown an upward trend. To expand the government's employment promotion and unemployment benefits from youth-centered policies to diverse age groups, including people in their 30s and 40s, prediction models for different age groups are required. Thus, we aimed to develop unemployment prediction models for specific age groups (30s and 40s) using available unemployment rates provided by Statistics Korea and Google search queries related to them. We first estimated multiple linear regressions (Model 1) using seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average approach with relevant unemployment rates. Then, we introduced Google search queries to obtain improved models (Model 2). For both groups, consequently, Model 2 additionally using web queries outperformed Model 1 during training and predictive periods. This result indicates that a web search query is still significant to improve the unemployment predictive models for Koreans. For practical application, this study needs to be furthered but will contribute to obtaining age-wise unemployment predictions.

• The Journal of Korean Institute for Practical Engineering Education
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.144-149
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• 2012

This paper reviews the uncovered people of the Korean Employment Insurance System (EIS) and analyzes policy options for minimizing the dead zone of the EIS. There are several policy options such as subsidizing insurance premium to employers and employees of small companies, extending coverage of excluded groups, relaxing qualifications of unemployment benefits and increasing benefit period and level, introducing the unemployment assistance system, introducing the unemployment insurance savings account system, extending coverage to non-wage workers and individualizing package services. According to the survey to the specialists and comparative evaluation criteria, the best policy option to minimize the dead zone of the EIS was to activate individualizing package services of intensive consultation, job place services, tailored vocational training, income support, daycare services, etc. to cure complex employment barriers of job seekers.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.5-28
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• 2017

Using 2006~2015 Korean Welfare Panel Survey data, this study analyzed the poverty reduction effects of social security benefits. The results show that social security benefits have substantial impacts on reducing the poverty gap. National Basic Livelihood Security, public pensions, and Basic Pension have relatively larger poverty reduction effects. Other benefits such as disability benefits, workers' compensation unemployment insurance, and childcare subsidies have much smaller poverty impacts. Two determining factors of the poverty reduction effect are (1)the amount and (2)the poverty reduction efficiency of social security benefits. With the expansion of the social security system in recent years, the poverty reduction efficiency has decreased in general. Due to a greater increase in the amount of benefits, however, the poverty reduction effect has gradually increased. In order to increase the anti-poverty effect of social security, it is important to find ways to improve efficiency while minimizing the disadvantages of the selectivistic welfare benefits.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.1-24
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• 2014

This paper examines the changes in early reemployment bonus system in Korea and investigates its effects on job finding rates of the unemployed and on their reemployment outcomes. The analysis on the characteristics of the recipients reveals that, after the policy change, the probability of receiving the bonus increases among female, older, and less educated job seekers. This paper also shows that exit hazard from unemployment has not changed significantly while the stability of the subsequent jobs has been substantially improved.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.113-150
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• 2017

This study analyzes how workers become impoverished and have their jobs less stabilized after they suffer from non-job-related sickness. Given that South Korea lacks sickness benefits, which most of OECD member states legislate and implement except US and Switzerland, this study examines its impact on laborers' job stability and povertization in Korea. The researchers have conducted in-depth interviews with nine former or present laborers who have the experiences and four experts on the issue in July-September, 2017 for the qualitative analysis. It is found that laborers, after becoming aware of their sickness, at first endure their pain without informing their employers not to lose their jobs. The attititude is observed especially among non-standard laborers, because sickness more often leads to job loss for them than for standard laborers. After workers have to leave their jobs due to their sickness in the end, they have no choice but to keep working in less stable jobs to compensate for income losses. They become gradually impoverished with their social capital like family bond declining. We observe laborers who are eligible for industrial accident insurance compensation could not benefit from the system because some employers refrain from the legal reporting duty. Due to this illegal practices, some industrial accident victims unduly lose their jobs due to "non-job-related sickness". Second, some employers report to the authority that their sick laborers have left their jobs 'voluntarily' even when they have quitted it without their volition, in which case the newly unemployed are not eligible for unemployment benefits. Large holes in Korea's safety nets for those suffering from multiple risks of sickness and unemployment.