New statistics confirm growing gap between rich and poor

The Korea Development Institute said the main causes of the economic disparity are an ageing population and the trend of living in nuclear families.

Seoul (AsiaNews) – The economic gap between rich and poor will increase in Korea and government intervention will be necessary to tackle the situation. This was the outcome of a statistical study on the country's economy within the coming 15 years. The research was published yesterday by the Korea Development Institute (KDI). The report showed that the Gini coefficient, an index illustrating the degree of income disparity applied by KDI, rose to 0.326 in 2005 from 0.310 in 2004. This statistic is set to rise to 0.335 in 2020.

"The acceleration of Korean society's aging trend, combined with the growing predominance of nuclear family units, that is of mother, father and children, will widen the wealth distributional inequality in the country,'' said a  KDI official. Statistics also revealed that the general increase in education does not rein in the imbalance of income distribution. The report also noted further disparity will arise from the increase in numbers of people who own a house but who are elderly and hence inactive from the working point of view.

• SOUTH
• KOREA
• DIFFERENCES
• DISPARITY
• ECONOMIC
• STATISTICS