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By Lee Hae-rin
Nearly half of all one-person households in Korea live below the poverty line, government research showed, Sunday. The rate of poverty was three times higher for one-person households than in the total population, while the figure was markedly higher for women and elderly people.
According to the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA)'s latest report "Statistical Yearbook of Poverty 2022," about half, or 47.2 percent, of single-person households in Korea made less than the national average income in 2020. This is more than three times higher than the poverty rate of the total population, which stands at 15.3 percent.
The number of one-person households in Korea has been rapidly increasing for years, reaching 7.16 million in 2021, which represents a 7.9 percent increase from the previous year, according to Statistics Korea.
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In contrast, there has been a decline in the proportion of the four-person households, which decreased from 31.1 percent in 2000 to 14.7 percent in 2021.
The study also revealed a higher poverty rate among women and elderly people who live alone.
Around 72.1 percent of individuals aged over 65 who live alone earned less than the national average income. Among them, the poverty rate was significantly higher for women at 55.7 percent compared to men at 34.5 percent.
It is due to Korea's social structure where women and the elderly are in relatively lower income groups, according to Professor Chung Soon-dool at Ehwa Womans University's Department of Social Welfare.
"Elderly people have marginal job opportunities after retirement … while women tend to have lower income than men on average," Chung told The Korea Times, Sunday.
In all age groups, the poverty rate stood at 39.5 percent for single-person households with disabilities, 9.8 percent and 8.2 percent for under-aged and people aged between 20s and 30s.
Chung, who chairs the Korean Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics and also served as a policy consultant for several government bodies including the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, underlined the strong correlation between "lonely deaths" and the problems faced by single-person households, emphasizing that "not only economic but also psychological support are needed" for this vulnerable group.
According to the health ministry's report last year, 3,378 people ― about one in a hundred deaths ― in Korea died alone at home and remained undiscovered for days due to being cut off from their family members and relatives. The figure has been on the rise during the past five years, from 2,412 in 2017.
"Each demographic group (of the one-person household population), for example the elderly and women, each face unique situations. Based on an accurate understanding of these characteristics, we need to come up with policies that can strengthen their abilities and provide a career network, which can eventually lead them to better economic opportunities," she said.
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