IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v103y2022i3p494-508.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Shaky social insurance foundation: Income instability and pension participation in South Korea

Author

Listed:
  • Wei‐Ting Yen

Abstract

Objective Many welfare states in young democracies feature low effective social insurance coverage, especially in old‐age pension. What explains the ineffective coverage? This article shows individual income instability is a microlevel factor contributing to low effective coverage. Method The article used 15 waves of the Korean Labor Income Panel Study and constructed a fine‐grained individual‐level income instability measure, which was used to predict individual participation in state‐run public pension using (multinomial) logistic models with industry, occupation, and cohort fixed effects. Result The article shows that income instability is negatively associated with public pension participation, and the negative relationship becomes larger as income level increases. Moreover, income instability inhibits only participation in state‐led risk pooling, but not in private self‐insuring. Conclusion The article sheds light on disentangling an individual‐level factor buttressing young welfare states and bears implications for the future contour of welfare states in young democracies.

Suggested Citation

  • Wei‐Ting Yen, 2022. "Shaky social insurance foundation: Income instability and pension participation in South Korea," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 103(3), pages 494-508, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:103:y:2022:i:3:p:494-508
    DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.13136
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.13136
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ssqu.13136?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joakim Palme & Walter Korpi, 1998. "The Paradox of Redistribution and Strategies of Equality: Welfare State Institutions, Inequality and Poverty in the Western Countries," LIS Working papers 174, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    2. Baker, Andy & Velasco-Guachalla, Vania Ximena, 2018. "Is the Informal Sector Politically Different? (Null) Answers from Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 170-182.
    3. Packard, Truman G., 2002. "Pooling, savings, and prevention - mitigating the risk of old age poverty in Chile," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2849, The World Bank.
    4. Barr, Nicholas, 2004. "Economics of the Welfare State," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, edition 4, number 9780199264971.
    5. Harold Alderman & Christina H. Paxson, 1994. "Do the Poor Insure? A Synthesis of the Literature on Risk and Consumption in Developing Countries," International Economic Association Series, in: Edmar L. Bacha (ed.), Economics in a Changing World, chapter 3, pages 48-78, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Gough,Ian & Wood,Geof & Barrientos,Armando & Bevan,Philippa & Davis,Peter & Room,Graham, 2004. "Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521834193, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daria Popova, 2023. "Impact of Equity in Social Protection Spending on Income Poverty and Inequality," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 697-721, September.
    2. Sebastian Sirén, 2011. "Towards universalism? The obstructed process of healthcare reform in bolivia," Development Research Working Paper Series 12/2011, Institute for Advanced Development Studies.
    3. Mihaylova Svilena & Bratoeva-Manoleva Silviya, 2017. "Social Transfers and Income Inequality in Bulgaria," South East European Journal of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 12(1), pages 38-49, April.
    4. Mario Arturo Ruiz Estrada & Evangelos Koutronas, 2018. "The quantitative and qualitative evolution of the social security research," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 52(4), pages 1807-1816, July.
    5. Maggie Ka-Wai Lau & Kee-Lee Chou, 2019. "Targeting, Universalism and Child Poverty in Hong Kong," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 12(1), pages 255-275, February.
    6. Niehues, Judith, 2010. "Social Spending Generosity and Income Inequality: A Dynamic Panel Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 5178, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Erdem Yörük & İbrahim Öker & Kerem Yıldırım & Burcu Yakut-Çakar, 2019. "The Variable Selection Problem in the Three Worlds of Welfare Literature," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 625-646, July.
    8. Owasim Akram & Mathilde Maîtrot, 2023. "Family's roles as a welfare pillar: The case of older persons living in extreme poverty in Bangladesh," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 41(3), May.
    9. Barrientos, Armando, 2011. "On the Distributional Implications of Social Protection Reforms in Latin America," WIDER Working Paper Series 069, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Bruch, Sarah K. & van der Naald, Joseph & Gornick, Janet C., 2022. "Poverty Reduction through Federal and State Policy Mechanisms: Variation Over Time and Across the U.S. States," SocArXiv jz5xp, Center for Open Science.
    11. Mona Sandbæk, 2017. "European Policies to Promote Children’s Rights and Combat Child Poverty," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-13, July.
    12. Jin Wook Kim & Young Jun Choi, 2008. "Private Transfers and Emerging Welfare States in East Asia: Comparative Perspectives," LIS Working papers 507, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    13. Cristiano Perugini & Gaetano Martino, 2008. "Income Inequality Within European Regions: Determinants And Effects On Growth," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 54(3), pages 373-406, September.
    14. Leena Eklund Karlsson & Anne Leena Ikonen & Kothar Mohammed Alqahtani & Pernille Tanggaard Andersen & Subash Thapa, 2020. "Health Equity Lens Embedded in the Public Health Policies of Saudi Arabia: A Qualitative Document Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, October.
    15. Tancrède Voituriez, 2020. "The quest for green welfare state in developing countries," Working Papers hal-02876972, HAL.
    16. Vassilis Tselios, 2008. "Income and educational inequalities in the regions of the European Union: Geographical spillovers under welfare state restrictions," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 87(3), pages 403-430, August.
    17. Renata Baborska & Emilio Hernandez & Emiliano Magrini & Cristian Morales-Opazo, 2020. "The impact of financial inclusion on rural food security experience: A perspective from low-and middle-income countries," Review of Development Finance Journal, Chartered Institute of Development Finance, vol. 10(2), pages 1-18.
    18. Jin, Ling & Chen, Kevin Z. & Yu, Bingxin & Filipski, Mateusz, 2015. "Farmers' Coping Strategies against an Aggregate Shock: Evidence from the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211814, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. Bucciol, Alessandro & Cavalli, Laura & Fedotenkov, Igor & Pertile, Paolo & Polin, Veronica & Sartor, Nicola & Sommacal, Alessandro, 2017. "A large scale OLG model for the analysis of the redistributive effects of policy reforms," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 104-127.
    20. Malte Luebker, 2019. "Can the Structure of Inequality Explain Fiscal Redistribution? Revisiting the Social Affinity Hypothesis," LIS Working papers 762, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:103:y:2022:i:3:p:494-508. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.