• 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.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.71-104
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• 2018

This paper adopts a distributive performance process model of in-work poverty based on labor markets, households, and welfare states and analyzes the 4-11 waves of the Korean Welfare Panel Study during 2008-15. Previous studies on in-work poverty have focused on the definitions and concepts of in-work poverty by analyzing employment and unemployment persistence and repetition dynamics, but rarely paid attention to institutional distributive performance. In this regard, this study preforms a stepwise analysis of labor markets, households, and welfare states as a process of income generation in labor markets, satisfaction of welfare needs and income pooling at households, and deduction of social security contribution and income tax as well as receipt of public transfer income at welfare states. Results of empirical analysis show that in-work poverty had been on increase during 2008-11, followed by a decrease between 2012-15. At labor market stages, full time status had the most prominent impact on in-work poverty process, while status by employment and contract type have generated a huge variation as well. At household stages, household work intensity and number of earners contributed to reduction of in-work poverty, but the relations did not seen to be straightforward. However, welfare state played little role in lifting employees out of in-work poverty. In terms of institutional distributive process, in-work poverty was prevalent in either household-welfare state stage or labor market-household-welfare stage. Non-vulnerable group in terms of in-risk poverty was around 80% of the sample during the period of analysis, the size of which has remained constant.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.60 no.4
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• pp.55-77
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• 2008

After the economic crisis of Korea, the character of Korean Poverty has changed. Most notably, many people are working but poor. Therefore it is important to understand the characteristics of the working poor, especially the unstable work experiences of the working poor since one of the causes of poverty is that. Prior research about the working poor has not fully proven this issue. This study is to examine the job sequences of the working poor. Thus I utilized the KLIPS(Korea Labor and Income Study), and analyzed it by event sequence analysis and optimal matching methods. The job sequences are divided as follows: total years of working in the labor market, the number of gaps and the length of gaps in their careers, and the characteristics of experienced jobs since they have entered the labor market from age 15. As a result, there are no statistically significant in the total years of working in the labor market. And the number of gaps and the length of gaps in their careers, and the characteristics of experienced jobs show that working poor have been experiencing more unstable than non-poor. Thus, almost all of the male working poor has unstable jobs their whole lives, and the female working poor's job sequences show distinct features according to women's life course. These results can give political implications to the anti-poverty policy in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.313-339
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to analysis empirically the socio-structural causes of working poor. This study used raw data of of Korea National Statistical Office from 1982 to 2004, and put in operation time series multiple regression analysis to use socio-economic factors of macro-economy environment, labor market, distribution system. Contrary to assertion of growth-concentrated people, economic growth rate has had significantly positive effect on the change of working poor size. In the growth period there has been trickle down effect of economic growth, but in the post-Fordism period there has not been valid circular relation. Recent introduction of the U. S. type capitalism resulted in negative phenomenon like aggravation of income distribution, deterioration of employment quality, enlargement of working poor. And there rise a question on socio-economic durability due to de-compensation on intra-institution. It is necessary to grope transition to the high road social market model - that is stable and sustainable - correspond to Korea that is stable and sustainable.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.66 no.3
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• pp.185-208
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• 2014

This study is to identify the factors deterring or precipitating the exit from welfare recipiency to labor market in the Korean social assistance program. The results from the empirical analyses of the Korea Welfare Panel Study(KOWEPS) show that the duration dependency is not due to increasing welfare dependency with duration, but to the fact that longer stayers have many vulnerable conditions to escape from poverty. Particularly, the main factors determining the transition from recipiency to labor market are not individual or household characteristics such as human or social capital. Those having adolescents of secondary education in their households or participating in some effective labor market program such as job placement service tend to have significant effects on the exit rates from recipiency. That means that the institution-related factors such as the education and health supports combined with benefits and the effective labor market programs are important in the translation from recipiency to labor market of working-age recipients in the Korean social assistance scheme.

• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.129-164
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• 2017

This article is an exploratory study on the recent growth of short-hours part-time work in Korea. The short-hours part-time work has been rapidly growing among low-educated women over sixty, particularly among bereaved or divorced women, contrary to the expectation of the government that encouraged the part-time work by means of work-family balance for working mothers or middle-aged women who experienced career interruption. The short-hours part-time jobs are concentrated in social service industry, mostly elderly care service jobs, and their working conditions are extremely poor, mostly low-wage jobs with no social insurances except for health insurance. In this study, we discuss why the short-hours part-time work has grown so fast in Korea since the mid 2000s. Using various governmental statistics, we examine the effects of the labor demand and supply situations during the time period, the legal context that is related with the exempt clause of the labor law, and the institutional context related with the government's public job creation projects for the elderly. We suggest some public policies needed to slow down the growth of the short-hours part-time jobs and to elevate their working conditions.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.57 no.2
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• pp.119-142
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to explore and describe of the reality of working poor in Korea. In spite of the increasing attention to the working poor, usual definitions of the working poor have some measurement questions. The definition of the working poor should focus on the key dimensions of work and poverty. This study defines working poor as all "persons who have devoted prior 6 months to working or looking for work and who lived in families with incomes below the poverty threshold". This study also defines poverty threshold based on the both concept of absolute and relative poverty. According to this definition, the working poor are almost equally divided between men and women and the majority of them are of prime working age. These characteristics of working poor are seems to be quite different from common sense. Also, serious deficiencies of human capital contribute to the employment problems of the working poor. Their education levels are much less than those of the working non-poor. The distributions of the employment status, occupation, and industry show also that the working poor are highly concentrated in a few low-wage jobs.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.111-136
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• 2007

The National Basic Livelihood Security(NBLS) System implemented from October 2000 has expanded cash assistance to cover the poor who are able to work in our country. Although the cash assistance for them has positive aspects of providing basic livelihood security for all people, but many scholars have also pointed out its negative aspects such as a decrease in labor supply among the poor. In order to provide policy implications for the cash assistance program of our country as well as the US, this paper examines the impact of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families(TANF) on poverty among single mothers and their families using data from March Current Population Survey of $1991{\sim}2002$. TANF imposes strong work requirements and time limits to recipients as conditions for cash assistance, which are major sub-components of TANF. Therefore, this paper analyzes TANF by looking at work requirements and time limits separately, not by looking at TANF as a single policy. The research findings show that work requirements significantly decreased income and increased poverty among single mothers. Although time limits show income increasing effects and poverty decreasing effects, it seems further studies on time limits are needed at this point. The research findings of this paper provide important lessons for welfare to work cash assistance of our country as well as the US.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.41-56
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• 2016

This study investigates the employment and spatial mismatch as a significant acting factor of deepening urban poverty and analyses the placeness of regional labor market that the more efficient place-based labor market intervention needs to take into account. The change of unemployment rate as a regional labor market outcome in metropolitan cities is determined by the dynamic interaction between disequilibrium of labor supply and demand and employment mismatch according to various labor market conditions and its process is certainly differentiated across the metropolitan regional labor markets. In addition, it is analyzed that during the employment suburbanization the spatial mismatch puts differentiated impacts on different labor groups through human capital requirements and industry-selective job opportunities. As a result, because this whole process works with its unique process within individual regional labor markets, in order to link between urban poverty and employment mismatch and to promote problem-solving labor market intervention, we need to develop place-based policy based on the placeness of regional labor marekt.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.129-142
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• 2011

This study investigates the patterns of labor market polarization and analyzes the characteristics and roles of regional labor market in the structuring process of the polarization in the metropolitan areas of Korea. The labor market polarization plays a role of key mechanism for deepening social exclusion in the area through expanding low-pay jobs and working poor. It is of great significance to adopt a spatial approach of local labor market in order to understand underlying dynamics of labor market polarization. Especially it is necessary to develop a more differentiated and systematic policy options based on the analysis of labor market polarization in the metropolitan areas of Korea. It is because understanding spatial differentiation of labor market dynamics is essential to figure out the structuring processes of poverty and sociall exclusion in the metropolican labor market in Korea.