Abstract
Using data from the Korean Labor & Income Panel Study (KLIPS), this study investigates private income transfers in Korea, where adult children have undertaken the most responsibility of supporting their elderly parents without well-established social safety net for the elderly. According to the KLIPS data, three out of five households provided some type of support for their aged parents and two out of five households of the elderly received financial support from their adult children on a regular base. However, the private income transfers in Korea are not enough to alleviate the impact of the fall in the earned income of those who retired and are approaching an age of needing financial assistance from external source. The monthly income of those at least the age of 75, even with the earning of their spouses, is below the staggering amount of 450,000 won, which indicates that the elderly in Korea are at high risk of poverty. In order to analyze microeconomic factors affecting the private income transfers to the elderly parents, the following three samples extracted from the KLIPS data are used: a sample of respondents of age 50 or older with detailed information on their financial status; a five-year household panel sample in which their unobserved family-specific and time-invariant characteristics can be controlled by the fixed-effects model; and a sample of the younger split-off household in which characteristics of both the elderly household and their adult children household can be controlled simultaneously. The results of estimating private income transfer models using these samples can be summarized as follows. First, the dominant motive lies on the children-to-parent altruistic relationship. Additionally, another is based on exchange motive, which is paid to the elderly parents who take care of their grandchildren. Second, the amount of private income transfers has negative correlation with the income of the elderly parents, while being positively correlated with the income of the adult children. However, its income elasticity is not that high. Third, the amount of private income transfers shows a pattern of reaching the highest level when the elderly parents are in the age of 75 years old, following a decreasing pattern thereafter. Fourth, public assistance, such as the National Basic Livelihood Security benefit, appears to crowd out private transfers. Private transfers have fared better than public transfers in alleviating elderly poverty, but the role of public transfers has been increasing rapidly since the welfare expansion after the financial crisis in the late 1990s, so that one of four elderly people depends on public transfers as their main income source in 2003. As of the same year, however, there existed and occupied 12% of the elderly households those who seemed eligible for the National Basic Livelihood benefit but did not receive any public assistance. To remove elderly poverty, government may need to improve welfare delivery system as well as to increase welfare budget for the poor. In the face of persistent elderly poverty and increasing demand for public support for the elderly, which will lead to increasing government debt, welfare policy needs targeting toward the neediest rather than expanding universal benefits that have less effect of income redistribution and heavier cost. Identifying every disadvantaged elderly in dire need for economic support and providing them with the basic livelihood security would be the most important and imminent responsibility that we all should assume to prepare for the growing aged population, and this also should accompany measures to utilize the elderly workforce with enough capability and strong will to work.
본 연구는 그동안 사회적 안전망이 미흡한 가운데 우리나라의 고령인구 부양에 중요한 역할을 해온 사적소득이전에 대한 미시적 분석을 통해 향후 노후소득보장정책에 시사점을 제공하고 있다. 한국노동패널 자료에 따르면, 만 60세 이상 노인가구주 세대의 다섯 가구 중 두 가구는 매월 자식들로부터 생활비 등의 경제적 도움을 받고 있는 것으로 조사되었으며, 공공부조 등 공적소득이전은 사적소득이전을 구축하는 효과를 가진 것으로 나타났다. 또한 지금까지는 사적이전이 공적이전보다 빈곤완화효과가 큰 것으로 나타났지만, 외환위기 후 복지지출의 확대와 함께 공적이전의 비중이 대폭 높아져, 공적이전을 주 소득원으로 살아가는 만 60세 이상 고령자는 2003년 기준으로 약 4분의 1에 달하는 것으로 조사되었다. 그러나 같은 해 기준으로 국민기초생활보장제도의 보호지정을 실질적으로 필요로 하면서도 수급권에서 배제된 것으로 추정되는 노인가구주 세대는 약 12%로서, 이들 가구의 빈곤 해소를 위해서는 예산 확보와 함께 사각지대를 없애기 위한 전달체계 개선이 필요할 것으로 보인다. 이처럼 여전히 광범한 빈곤노인계층이 존재하는 한편, 고령인구에 대한 사적 부양이 공적 부양으로 전환되면서 재정건전성이 우려되고 있는 현 상황에서 소득재분배의 효과가 적고 경직적 비용부담이 큰 보편급여의 확대보다는 취약노인계층에 대한 집중적인 지원을 강화할 필요가 있을 것이다.