2010, Vol.37, No.1

Korean Social Science Journal 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.06

pISSN : 1225-0368 / eISSN : 2196-4424
https://journal.kci.go.kr/kssj

This study is a comprehensive analysis of the characteristics of the future prospects for the elderly in Korea based on research about the elderly in Japan where advanced policies for an aging society are well established and the family values and the cultural environment are similar to Korea. This study examines the important factors that shape productive living for the elderly in Japan, how they participate in such retirement activities, how they want to construct retirement, and what they expect. The analysis methodology selected elderly people who participate in productive activities, conducted in-depth interviews with them, and analyzed the interviews as empirical cases. The analysis results show that elderly people have an intention to participate in productive activities and this contributes positively to the degree of life satisfaction for them. In addition, the elderly people interviewed were aware of the aging society Japan and the burden of supporting senior members that is now a social issue open for discussion. Therefore, they find their activities meaningful in that those activities help to change negative social perspectives of the elderly. They emphasized the fact that through voluntary participation in productive activities, they spare society and their children the burden of supporting them. In addition, the core factor in the elderly choosing and participating in the activities for their happy old age was an independent evaluation rather than pressure from outside. The conclusion identifies that the Japanese social system enables elderly people to be financially more independent than elderly in Korea, because the elderly in Japan can rely on the pension for their old age, which affects their independent relationship with their children as well.

This paper analyses the effect of labor force participation by women on family income inequality in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. This paper explores two research issues. First, does labor force participation by women reinforce family income inequality due to homogamy or does it contribute to reduce family income inequality with the labor force participation of wives from low-income families? Second, is there a national variation of the effect of labor force participation by women on family income inequality across the three countries? The findings are: (1) the analysis of the SSM data displays that labor force participation by women reduces family income inequality in Korea and Japan, whereas it increases family income inequality in Taiwan, (2) the relative contribution of the wife’s income to family income inequality is the largest in Taiwan and the smallest in Japan, (3) the largest reduction of family income inequality due to the wife’s income is observed in Korea, whereas the lowest reduction is observed in Japan. The negative correlation between the income of a husband and the income of the wife in Korea contributes to the reduction of family income inequality.

This paper develops models of the demand for lotto in Korea in order to explore economic issues such as revenue maximization, regressivity, addictiveness and the adequate size of the lottery market. Following Farrell et al. (1999) and Forrest et al. (2000a), we incorporate the expected price of a lotto ticket and lagged sales in the regression of current sales. Major findings are as follow. First, the size of lottery market in Korea is very small relative to the averages of the OECD, Asian countries, and countries with a GDP per capita between $20,000 and $40,000, respectively. This fact implies that there is room to enhance the efficiency of lotteries as a means to finance public goods. Second, the demand for lotto is found to be unit elastic in the short run, but it is inelastic in the long run. Consequently, any measure that increases the expected price of a lotto ticket (for instance lowering the ratio of sales allocated to prizes) may increase lotto sales in the long run. The finding that the price elasticity is greater in the long run than in the short run contradicts the widespread presumption that lotteries are addictive. Third, weak economic conditions (higher rates of unemployment and economic recessions) stimulate lotto sales. Finally, the decrease in the nominal price of a lotto ticket implemented on August 8, 2004 can help explain the continued decrease in lotto sales thereafter.