Relative poverty rate of elderly is highest among OECD member countries

The elderly aged 66 or older in South Korea suffers from the highest rate of relative poverty among OECD member countries. South Korea’s self-sufficiency rate in grain has dropped to one-fourth of what it was in 1970, making the country more vulnerable to fluctuations in international gran prices.

According to a report assessing South Korea’s implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2022 released by Statistics Korea on Wednesday, the relative poverty rate of the country’s population aged 66 and older was 40.4 percent in 2020, four times higher than that of the population aged 18-65 (10.6%). The relative poverty rate refers to the proportion of the population, whose income does not exceed 50 percent of the median income.

The relative poverty rate for the population aged 66 or older compared to that of those aged 18 to 65 was 367.8 percent as of 2018, the highest among OECD countries followed by Switzerland and Japan. The number is 1.5 times higher than that of Switzerland (250%) and 2.4 times higher than that of Japan (153.8%). The elderly in Korea also suffered from low income. The equalized median income of the population aged 66 or older was 18.09 million won a year in 2020, only half that of those aged 18-65 (32.4 million won a year).


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