The 2013 Korea Welfare Panel Study(KOWEPS): An In-Depth Analysis of KOWEPS_Combined Database

Abstract

Social welfare policy should cope flexibly with the changes in people's economic status, consumption expenditures, value judgments, and the status of economy-wide income distribution, poverty and inequality. In order to overcome various limitations of existing cross-sectional survey data, Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs(KIHASA) & Seoul National University(SNU) established 7,072 households of original samples, begun 'Korea Welfare Panel Study(KOWEPS)' in 2006, and completed the 8th wave survey in 2013. There are three types of questionnaires for the survey: the first is for the households, the second is for household members who are aged 15 and over, and the third is for special topics (supplements). In the 7th wave(2012), we have completed 5,732 household samples and 11,599 family members of the aged 15 which include both the original and newly created households. The attrition rate of the original household sample (5,271) in the 7th wave compared to the 1st wave was 25.47%. About 75% retention rate was similar to other panel surveys or relatively high levels. Nevertheless, to improve the problems of declining of original sample size due to survey rejection and natural loss and the problems of the distribution of the sample and representativeness, we additionally conducted to survey 1,800 households of new panel sample(KOWEPS_2) in 2012. This in-depth study focus on the construction of the new sample combined panel data(KOWEPS_Combined), the process of weight adjustment, and the comparative analysis of original household sample(KOWEPS_1) and new panel sample households(KOWEPS_2). Also, this study provide the basic statistics of the major household & individual variables and analyze poverty and inequality indicators in the combined panel data(KOWEPS_Combined).