MEASURING INCOME INEQUALITY BETWEEN PRIME-AGED WORKERS AND THE GROWING AGEING POPULATION IN SOUTH KOREA

The growing ageing population in South Korea has further widened income disparity among different working age groups. Experts believe this disparity may even increase in the future and thus a mode of prediction with regard income and inequality may have to be clearly established. This paper intends to measure the current income inequality between prime working age Koreans (working population ages 30 - 59) and the ageing population (ages 60 and above), and to predict the income inequality of these two groups in the future. This paper will also predict income disparity between the two groups in Korea with the introduction of moderate or considerable government intervention. To assess the income inequality between the working and ageing population, this paper acquired data, such as wages and population of different age groups, from multiple credible sources such as the United Nations, Korean Statistics Information Service, OECD, and from other sources. The data ranged from 2006 up until 2018. These data were then converted to gini coefficient with the use of a scoring system. The gini coefficient values from the year 2006 to 2018, obtained from the previous method, were used to measure the trend in income inequality between the working and ageing population and were also used to predict the income inequality in the future. Looking at the gini coefficient values from 2006 to 2018, the values were approaching 0, which suggest that the disparity in income was actually diminishing. And reflecting back to this trend, it suggests that the gini coefficient values in the future would also diminish over time thus, supporting the claim that the income disparity between the working and ageing population would reduce. Moreover, with the implementation of applicable government policies, the gini coefficient values are expected to approach 0 at a much faster rate, which also suggests that government interventions would reduce the income gap between working and ageing population. Despite the beliefs of the expert that income disparity may increase in the future, the result proves that income gap between working and ageing population would diminish in the future, and may diminish more rapidly with potential government intervention.