title: An evaluation of recent old-age policy innovations in South Korea.
abstract: In 2008, South Korea launched a Basic Old-Age Pension program, which provides income support for the bottom 60% of the population, and a universal Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI) program. We investigate the effect of both policies on subjective well-being of the elderly. We use panel data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging, with the 2006 data representing the "pretreatment" and the 2008 data the "posttreatment" situations. We use regression methods for purposes of inferring program impacts. Our findings suggest that satisfaction with economic status was slightly improved by LTCI alone, and by LTCI and basic old-age pension in combination, depending on the estimator used. We found no policy impacts on satisfaction with health conditions. The benefits provided by the two programs may be insufficient to raise well-being in the population as a whole; alternatively, the outcomes may have been measured too soon after the policies were implemented.
authors: Aging Studies Institute, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA hlee76@maxwell.syr.edu.
authors: Hee Seung
authors: HS
authors: Lee
authors: Aging Studies Institute, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA.
authors: Douglas A
authors: DA
authors: Wolf
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging; D006291:Health Policy / Q000191:economics*; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007353:Insurance, Long-Term Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life; D012044:Regression Analysis; D056910:Republic of Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors
keywords: international; long-term care; social support; well-being