From the early 1980s to 2007, spanning about thirty years, Korea’s sex ratio at birth remained higher than the natural ratio, having first exceeded it in the 1970s. This study arose out of concerns that those born during these years of imbalanced sex ratios at birth could, upon reaching reproductive age, engender imbalances in the sex ratio at marriage. For the analysis, I calculated the sex ratio of the current unmarried population, the hypothetical matching index for the unmarried population, and Schoen’s (1983) S-index. The results reveal that imbalances in the sex ratio at birth, while nonexistent in the early 1990s, worsened from the mid-2000s onward, to the extent that by 2021, there were 19.6 percent more unmarried men than unmarried women nationwide. Over the years, imbalances in the sex ratio at marriage have become much more severe in non-capital areas than in the capital region.
Implemented in September 2018 pursuant to the Child Benefits Act, the Child Benefit was initially paid to families in the bottom 90 percent of the countable-income distribution for children under 6 years of age. The Child Benefit was made universal in January 2019 and extended further in January 2022 to cover children up to 7 years old. Survey findings suggest that families primarily allocate the child benefits they receive toward expenses such as food and snacks, followed by purchases of baby-and-child items, savings, insurance, investment, and stocks for the child, as well as fees for private early education. Recipients gave the Child Benefit an overall satisfaction score of 5.7 on a 10-point scale, slightly above the midpoint. In addition, over 50 percent of respondents reported that the Child Benefit had a positive influence on their decision to have children. For the Child Benefit to better serve as a means of promoting the fundamental rights of children and as an effective response to low fertility situations, it should be made available to children over a wider age range and paid in increased amounts.
The importance of education welfare is growing as a means of preventing the education gap from widening as a result of the educational environment and socioeconomic inequalities deteriorating following the Covid-19 pandemic. It is crucial that no one, in a time of crisis or otherwise, be put in a disadvantageous position in education because of their socioeconomic disadvantage or lack of access to resources. In this regard, it is essential that education welfare projects are designed and delivered so as to provide equal opportunities for education to students and outside-of-school adolescents alike. This study examines the concept of education welfare as presented in relevant legal frameworks and municipal ordinances, analyzes the education welfare projects implemented by the central and municipal governments and local offices of education, and presents improvement options.
In 2020, Korea spent 0.83 percent of its GDP on disability policies, just over one-third of the OECD average. Disability benefits in kind as a share of GDP have approximated the OECD average, but disability cash benefits constituted less than a quarter of the OECD average as a share of GDP. Despite Korea’s overall public social expenditure fast approaching the OECD average, spending on disability increased only at such a relatively moderate pace that it is hard to expect that it will soon reach a proportion anywhere near considered in balance with the rest of public social expenditure. Korea’s spending on disability policies remaining at such low levels as a share of GDP is attributable to disability assistance programs remaining low in both coverage and benefit level. Unless substantial changes are made to disability cash assistance, which as a share of GDP still falls far below the OECD average, Korea’s overall spending on disability policies is likely to remain low compared to the OECD average.
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought on significant changes in the lives of both non-disabled people and individuals living with disabilities. Throughout and following quarantine, screening, self-imposed isolation, or testing positive for the virus, people with disabilities, in particular, have experienced unequal access to and exclusion from response resources, along with anxiety and depressive symptoms at varying degrees depending on their functional limitations, as well as a higher burden of care on their families. Disability care has been recognized as crucial not only for people with disabilities, who rely heavily on it in much of their daily life, but also for their families. This study assesses the limitations of the current disability care system and, in light of how the system fell short during the pandemic situation in Korea and by drawing lessons from how the UK and the US responded to the needs of people with disabilities during the height of Covid-19, proposes the direction in which Korea should be going. Disability care in these times of endemic Covid-19 should be structured in a way that promotes, with a focus on “locality,” flexible community-led care and the participation of disabled community members themselves.
Our analysis of trends in the poverty rate and their influencing factors, conducted using data from the Survey of Household Finances and Living Conditions, revealed that the disposable-income poverty rate for disabled persons declined from 47.0 percent in 2012 to 43.0 percent in 2016. In the years 2016 through 2020, a period examined based on combined data―survey data supplemented with administrative records―the disposable-income poverty rate declined from 40.7 percent to 39.6 percent. Despite the continuous expansion of public transfers, disabled people did not see their disposable-income poverty rate fall all that much because of the increase in their market-income poverty rate. Our in-depth examination revealed that the rise in the market-income poverty rate among disabled people can be attributed to changes in their sociodemographic composition. These changes included aging, an increasing share of one-person households, and a declining proportion of disabled individuals cohabitating with non-disabled family members.
