Ashley Tyner
Half of South Korea's elderly households live in a state of "relative poverty" whose income falls beelow 50% of the average household income of the nation. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the relative poverty ratio among the elderly people over the age of 65 in Korea was 45% in 2006, assuming that just about one in every two elderly households live in poverty. No other OECD countries' elderly poverty leven exceeded 40%. Ireland trailed as a distant second with 31%. Observers attribute South Korea's high elderly poverty rate to the rapid transformation of the family structure and an underdeveloped welfare system. "South Korea didn't have a social insurance system for elderly people because, by tradition, the grown-up children supported their old parents," Yoo Kyung-joon. Korea is quickly aging. With its population at 49 million, 7% are over 65 years old.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/11/113_34066.html
1 comment:
I feel that is problem is occuring more and more in asian countries. The modern pressures to be the most competitive in a business world makes the younger population leaving the countryside in search of better jobs in the city. This also includes migration to other parts. I understand that this situation leaves the elderly in a position of bad health, no one to look after them and this is a tradition. It is an astounding and sad situation because the elderly never saw themselves asking for help in the later years. They always assumed the traditional family would be there to support them.
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