• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.2713-2717
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• 2014

Background: Cancer imposes significant economic challenges for individuals, families, and society. Households of cancer patients often experience income loss due to change in job status and/or excessive medical expenses. Thus, we examined whether changes in economic status for such households is affected by catastrophic health expenditures. Materials and Methods: We used the Korea Health Panel Survey (KHPS) Panel $1^{st}-4^{th}$ (2008-2011 subjects) data and extracted records from 211 out of 5,332 households in the database for this study. To identify factors associated with catastrophic health expenditures and, in particular, to examine the relationship between change in economic status and catastrophic health expenditures, we conducted a generalized linear model analysis. Results: Among 211 households with cancer patients, 84 (39.8%) experienced catastrophic health expenditures, while 127 (40.2%) did not show evidence of catastrophic medical costs. If a change in economic status results from a change in job status for head of household (job loss), these households are more likely to incur catastrophic health expenditure than households who have not experienced a change in job status (odds ratios (ORs)=2.17, 2.63, respectively). A comparison between households with a newly-diagnosed patient versus households with patients having lived with cancer for one or two years, showed the longer patients had cancer, the more likely their households incurred catastrophic medical costs (OR=1.78, 1.36, respectively). Conclusions: Change in economic status of households in which the cancer patient was the head of household was associated with a greater likelihood that the household would incur catastrophic health costs. It is imperative that the Korean government connect health and labor policies in order to develop economic programs to assist households with cancer patients.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.108-117
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to analyze the blind spots of Korea's employment insurance system from a gender perspective. The data used for this study was derived from 12th (2009) and 20th (2017) years of the Korean Labor and Income Panel Studies. Logistic regression analysis was performed to analyze the causes of the blind spot. As a result, the gender gap decreased by 5% in 2017 compared to that in 2009. In the coverage of employment insurance by gender, women are more likely to join when controlling for other demographic factors. If the conditions in the labor market are the same, then women's insurance coverage is likely to be higher than that of men. The policy suggestions are as follows. The current employment insurance system has a greater impact on the labor market characteristics than the difference in the participation rate according to gender itself. The results of this study show that bridging the gender gap in the labor market is an important way of bridging the gender gap in employment insurance coverage. In the short term, the social insurance subsidy program may be effective, but policy efforts are fundamentally needed to improve the employment environment of women and low-wage workers.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.77-105
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• 2004

Given the limitations of UI benefit and self-insurance through precautionary savings, this paper suggests a new scheme of income support for the unemployed, which offers unemployed workers not only UI benefit but also borrowings from their future pension incomes. Allowing individuals to have effective self-insurance through pension- borrowing, this scheme provides them with consumption-smoothing and reduction in risk burden while maintaining search incentives of the unemployed. Simulation study based upon household panel data in Korea suggests that a heavy reliance should be set upon self-insurance through pension-borrowings rather than upon UI benefit, even for the low-income individuals who are subsidized under UI system. This result provides us with insightful implications for a social safety net in (fast-growing) developing countries, where people cannot afford a good amount of UI benefit or of precautionary savings against unemployment although they expect their incomes to be much higher in the future. Indeed, it is consumption-smoothing effect of self-insurance through pension- borrowings, as well as its incentive-maintaining effect, that makes it a promising alternative of social safety net in developing countries.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.417-449
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of local area concentration of particulate matter on life satisfaction, by matching subjective satisfaction in the Korea Labor & Income Panel Study data with daily data of $PM_{10}$ and $PM_{2.5}$. We find that the concentration of particulate matter has a significant negative effect on satisfaction. A $1{\mu}g/m^3$ increase in $PM_{10}$($PM_{2.5}$) leads to lower the probability of choosing 'satisfaction' by 0.042%p~0.091%p(0.034%p~0.153%p) and a 1% increase in annual income per household raises the probability of choosing 'satisfaction' by 0.16%p~0.18%p respectively. To estimate the monetary value of reducing $PM_{10}$ and $PM_{2.5}$, we calculate willingness-to-pay for mitigating air pollution, which represents the tradeoff between the reduction in particulate matter and income. We find that people on average are willing to pay \108,787($96)~209,519($186) for a $1{\mu}g/m^3$ reduction in $PM_{10}$ and to pay 89,345($79)~362,930($322) in $PM_{2.5}$. This amount corresponds to 0.26%~0.50%(0.22%~0.88%) of the average annual household income in South Korea.

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

Using the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study 2001 (KLIPS 2001), this paper examines gender differences in the return to education in Korea. On average, there is little difference in return to education between male and female workers. However, this paper provides evidence that the impact of education on wages is greater for female workers compared to that for male workers using three different estimation strategies. First, a simple cohort analysis shows that the estimated returns to education for male and female workers have different patterns by age cohort and this is the main reason we observe little gap in average returns to education between men and women. Second, we find that college degree has a significant impact on women's labor market outcomes, while there is little gain for men in terms of wage levels by having college degree. Finally, when controlling unobservable individual ability level with test scores, education has no significant impact on male workers' wage levels, while the impact of education on wages is considerably large for female workers. All three findings support that the impact of education on labor market outcomes is greater for female workers compared to that for male workers as many researchers have found in other OECD countries.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.1-30
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• 2003

The recent experience about self-employment shows three main trends: first, its share out of the total workers has steadily increased, recording 37.6% in 2001, implying its prevalence and importance; second, its share out of male workers has caught up female workers', implying its importance to males as well as females; and finally, during the recent Economic Crisis when there was mass layoff and large scale bankruptcy, its share rapidly increased, reflecting its role of a buffer to economic fluctuation. However, there have been few studies on self-employment, mainly focusing on what makes someone choose it as an alternative to being employed. This study analyzes the determinants of the duration to terminate self-employment, by applying the proportional hazard model to the Korea Labor and Income Panel Survey(KLIPS) by the Korea Labor Institute. The KLIPS started the first wave in 1998 with the 5,000 household sample (and about 12,000 individual sample of household members aged 15 and more). In this study, the first four waves are used for analysis. The average duration of 5,357 spells of self-employment is 130 months. It shows slight difference between males(124 months) and females(138 months) while it widely ranges over industries (296 months for agriculture industry while 50 months for restaurant and hotel industry). Estimates of the proportional hazard model of the self-employment duration show that females are more likely to terminate self-employment while it is not statistically significant. The effect of age at starting self-employment on the hazard shows the inverse V-shape, which implies that, until a certain age(47 years), the hazard become higher as aging while, since then, it become lower as aging. The level of education has a positive effect on the hazard, implying that more education is related to the higher probability to be employed. The measures of economic performances, annual sales and earnings, are positively related to continuing self-employment while hardship at the start of self-employment measured by several ways has a negative effect. Training before opening business has a positive effect on keeping on self-employment and its effects are different over its providers, significantly positive for public providers while insignificant for private providers. More and further research on self-employment is urgent in the rapidly ageing society. To help workers to be self-employed, more public assistance is necessary for education, training, financing, marketing, management, and human resource management in order to make the olders consider self-employment as a good alternative rather than an inevitable one.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.5-35
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• 2004

This research is about the change of the occupation and the income of the subscriber of the medical expenditure due to the economic influence on them. The data of this study are based on 4,215 of medical cost payers among respondents of the survey on "Health and Retirement", which was the fourth additional research of Korea Labor and Income Panel Survey. The main findings of this study are as follows: First, the average medical cost is 5.5% of the income. The ratio of the medical cost to an earned income is highly different between low-income group and high income group. For the low income group, the medical cost reaches up to 1/3 of the total family income. That proves that the medical cost si a heavy burden on them. The group with the high medical expenditure seems to be supported by their own private property and other family members whenever it is needed. But it doesn't show the exact sources of the property, which includes the fund from the interests and real estates. On the other hand, only 14.4% of the subscribers changed their job status on the 5th year, and 85.6% of those kept their job status until the 5th year from the 4th year. This shows that the amount of the medical cost could be the important factor for them to change their job; for example, it is crucial whether the medical expenditure is over the average rate or not. Furthermore, the change of the occupation caused by the medical cost has the negative influence on the gross income. It makes the economic conditions of the family get worse. Therefore, the health insurance in Korea is lack of the compensational function, which substitutes the family income reduced by the change of the job status due to the high medical cost.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.141-178
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• 2012

Although the rate of self-employment is high in Korean labor market and the rate gap between age groups is high, few studies have addressed on the effects of push factors on transition into self-employment across age groups. The goal of this research is to determine if push factors exert different effects on the self-employment decisions across age groups. There is interest in testing push hypothesis and pull hypothesis. The Korean Labor and Income Panel Study wave 6~11 is used to test this study's hypothesis. The main contribution of the paper is that in case of high unemployment, the probability of transition into self-employment increases. It is consistent with the push hypothesis. Many people are forced to become self-employed person due to the high rate of unemployment and limited occupational choice rather than the role of entrepreneurship. By age subgroup, the transition into self-employment of the ages of 30 and 49 is high. In addition, people at 40-49 years of age are more likely to become self-employed as a response of inadequate job opportunities. It provides the evidence that the self-employment is not a matter of special age group in that people in the 30 to 49 year old age group whose economic activities are vigorous move into marginalized labor market. Furthermore, it seems to be threatened the employment's stability of the prime age in that even people who are age 40-49 years of age are pushed into self-employment because of the recession.

• Survey Research
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.1-21
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to compare the estimates of housework time by gender using two representative methods of time use study: Time Diary and Stylized Survey Questionnaire. Our analysis is based on the data from the Lifetime Use Survey(2004), which used time-diary questions, and the Korean Labor & Income Panel Study(KLIPS 2004), which used stylized questions on housework hours. The results show that men over-report their housework time in the stylized time use questions. In contrast, women under-report their housework time, which is unusual in the previous studies on response errors and reporting gap. Subgroup analysis shows that widowed/divorced men tend to over-report their contribution to housework more than other groups whereas among women, groups burdened with employed work, caring and housework underestimate their housework time. This reporting gap is explained by gendered norm and perception of time pressure. The theory to explain under-reporting of the housework time has been undeveloped in the previous studies. Our study suggests that perceptions of time pressure be an important factor to explain women's reporting gap of housework estimates.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.19-37
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to confirm a structural relationship on factors affecting ratio of public transportation spending to a car-owning household's total transportation expenditure. For this purpose, informations of household's attributes and activities were gathered using the 13th Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS), and information of land-use and transportation conditions on their residential locations was collected and processed. A structural equation model (SEM) on determinants affecting ratio of public transportation expenditure was constructed, based on an execution result of factor analysis using the analyzing database. The latent variables were derived as land-use/transportation characteristic, household's attribute and household's activity. In the analyzing result of the SEM, the entire latent variables were significant. And, the first two latent variables had positive influences, and the last latent variable had a negative impact. To promote public transportation use of the car-owning households, this study suggests that the policies such as enhancement of convenience in public transportation use for the household's activities and improvement of the land-use/transport conditions are required.