• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.323-357
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• 2009

This study illuminates the mechanism of life course on labor status of old age complementing the limits of labor status hypothesis of old age and model of statues attainment and combining them. The main results from this analysis are summarized in four points. Firstly, older men mostly engaged in agriculture, forestry and fishing industry or low-class occupations. A very small portion held high level or professional occupations. Regular full-time employees or employers were only 4.4% while, about 70% of older employees were temporal employees or self-employed. This shows that the elderly affluence hypothesis which alleges that most older men maintain high level occupations, applies to only a few. The second finding is that wealth differentials are sizable: about 20% of older workers own less than 50 million won, while 9.3% possess more than 600 million won. Therefore, it is not safe to claim that most people have accumulated enough wealth for old age according to the elderly affluence hypothesis. This gap being mainly reflected by education level, suggests that the model of status attainment is appropriate as wealth accumulation hypothesis. Thirdly, educational level determined not only lifetime careers, but also labor status of old age. Fourthly, using path analysis, the last finding is that education had effect on labor status of old age through lifetime career and wealth. That is, old men who have low education level had unstable lifetime career and own less wealth. They work in low income job, low social occupations and unstable occupation type in old age. This shows that life inequality continues until old age. Therefore, the inequality of education opportunity, spread of part-time work and small scale self employees should be discouraged. Furthermore, related policy should be provided in order to prevent being caught in unstable work.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.60 no.3
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• pp.31-58
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• 2008

This study examines applying the elderly poverty labor hypothesis and skill-biased technological change hypothesis to labor force participation rate(LFPR) of older males in Korea. These hypotheses have hardly been examined on the this group. The analysis is based on the data "Summary of economically active population($1965{\sim}2007$)", "Population projection($1965{\sim}2007$)", "Report on wage structure survey($1993{\sim}2005$)" and "Korea Labor and Income Panel Study($1998{\sim}2006$)". The method employed for this study is logistic regression. The main results from this analysis are summarized in five points. Firstly, Korean older males' LFPR have been increasing since 1965 when industrialization was expanding at full steam. This trend has been different from the decreasing trend of industrialized countries. The second finding is that poor older males' LFPR is, on the average, 5.2% higher than that of non-poor older males from 1998 to 2005. The third result is that the non-elderly man has been increasingly positioned at higher grade occupations, while the elderly man has been held at lower grade occupations. The fourth is that labor demand for highly educated workers has exceeded the increased labor supply of the group, while the demand for low educated workers has decreased far beyond the declined labor supply. As a result, college premium has increased from 139% in 1993 to 157.8% in 2005. The final main implication of this study is that the industrialization theory and modernization hypothesis still holds for the LFPR of Korean older males. However, the elderly affluence hypothesis of the LFPR of older males are hardly persuasive in explaining Korean phenomenon. Especially, we find that the elderly poverty is the main mechanism in determining the Korean LFPR in old ages. This supports the elderly poverty labor hypothesis presented in this study. Skill-biased technological change hypothesis partially explains the LFPR of older man. However, we believe that other factors; human capital specially high school education rather than university education and skill required in less skill biased occupations or the poverty; also have taken effect.