Population Aging and Changes in the Roles of Public and Private Transfers

Abstract

While caring in the past for parents in old age was mostly regarded as a family responsibility, today the rapid advancement of population aging and the growing welfare needs have brought to the fore the importance of public transfers in old-age income support. The 2014 Survey of Living Conditions and Welfare Needs of Older Koreans finds that when asked who should be held responsible for provisions for one's old age, only 14.8 percent of the surveyed answered "one's adult children" or "oneself and one's adult children," while as much as 52.9 percent picked "the government" or "oneself and the government." These figures suggest a significant rise over the recent years in people's expectation of the government's role in old-age income support.