Seniors main income earners for poorest households: data

By Yonhap

Published : Oct. 5, 2019 - 15:13

Seniors are the chief breadwinners for South Korea's poorest households, with such family units generally having less than one member holding a steady job, data showed Saturday.

According to the data from Statistics Korea, the average age of the chief breadwinners for households making up the bottom 20 percent of the income tier stood at 63.8 years between 2003 and 2019.

Job seekers look at a bulletin board on which companies post recruitment notices for the middle-aged and elderly in Guri, Gyeonggi Province. (Gyeonggi Provincial Office)

Asia's fourth-largest economy became an aged society -- one in which 14 percent of the population is over 65 -- in 2017, and is expected to become a super-aged society with 20 percent of the country over 65 around 2026.

The latest statistics also showed that there were 0.78 people in the lowest earning households with a job this year vis-a-vis 2.1 for the most well off families. (Yonhap)