In 2023, the relative poverty rate in South Korea stood at around 14.9 percent, which was the same as the previous year. The relative poverty rate, the share of people living with less than half of the national median disposable income, has fallen in recent years. However, the numbers are still relatively high by global standards, especially among older people. Relative poverty among older adults The share of older people in South Korea continues to rise. In 2023, the elderly population aged 65 years and older accounted for about 19 percent of the total South Korean population. In 2024, South Korea has become a 'super-aged' society, with people aged 65 and older accounting for more than 20 percent of the total population. However, the economic situation of older people has improved little – around 40 percent of the elderly population lives in relative poverty, which is among the highest rates of member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Poverty and suicide risk among older adults South Korea has the highest suicide rate in the OECD, with 13,978 people taking their own lives in 2023. The suicide rate among older adults is exceptionally high. The suicide rate was highest among the elderly male population aged 80 years and older. The most cited causes of suicide among people aged 65 years and older were health problems and financial difficulties.

Korea Relative Poverty Rate: All Households: Disposable Income data was reported at 14.700 % in 2016. This records an increase from the previous number of 13.800 % for 2015. Korea Relative Poverty Rate: All Households: Disposable Income data is updated yearly, averaging 14.700 % from Dec 2006 (Median) to 2016, with 11 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 15.300 % in 2009 and a record low of 13.800 % in 2015. Korea Relative Poverty Rate: All Households: Disposable Income data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Statistics Korea. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Korea – Table KR.H066: Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HS): Income Distribution.

In 2021, more than 39 percent of people over 65 years in South Korea were living in relative poverty. This was the second-highest rate among member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Korea Relative Poverty Rate: All Households: Mkt Income data was reported at 19.500 % in 2016. This records an increase from the previous number of 18.600 % for 2015. Korea Relative Poverty Rate: All Households: Mkt Income data is updated yearly, averaging 17.900 % from Dec 2006 (Median) to 2016, with 11 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 19.500 % in 2016 and a record low of 16.600 % in 2006. Korea Relative Poverty Rate: All Households: Mkt Income data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Statistics Korea. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Korea – Table KR.H066: Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HS): Income Distribution.

Out of all OECD countries, Cost Rica had the highest poverty rate as of 2022, at over 20 percent. The country with the second highest poverty rate was the United States, with 18 percent. On the other end of the scale, Czechia had the lowest poverty rate at 6.4 percent, followed by Denmark.

The significance of the OECD

The OECD, or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, was founded in 1948 and is made up of 38 member countries. It seeks to improve the economic and social well-being of countries and their populations. The OECD looks at issues that impact people’s everyday lives and proposes policies that can help to improve the quality of life.

Poverty in the United States

In 2022, there were nearly 38 million people living below the poverty line in the U.S.. About one fourth of the Native American population lived in poverty in 2022, the most out of any ethnicity. In addition, the rate was higher among young women than young men. It is clear that poverty in the United States is a complex, multi-faceted issue that affects millions of people and is even more complex to solve.

Korea Poverty Headcount Ratio at $1.90 a Day: 2011 PPP: % of Population data was reported at 0.300 % in 2012. This stayed constant from the previous number of 0.300 % for 2010. Korea Poverty Headcount Ratio at $1.90 a Day: 2011 PPP: % of Population data is updated yearly, averaging 0.300 % from Dec 2006 (Median) to 2012, with 4 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 0.300 % in 2012 and a record low of 0.300 % in 2012. Korea Poverty Headcount Ratio at $1.90 a Day: 2011 PPP: % of Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Korea – Table KR.World Bank: Poverty. Poverty headcount ratio at $1.90 a day is the percentage of the population living on less than $1.90 a day at 2011 international prices. As a result of revisions in PPP exchange rates, poverty rates for individual countries cannot be compared with poverty rates reported in earlier editions.; ; World Bank, Development Research Group. Data are based on primary household survey data obtained from government statistical agencies and World Bank country departments. Data for high-income economies are from the Luxembourg Income Study database. For more information and methodology, please see PovcalNet (http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/index.htm).; ; The World Bank’s internationally comparable poverty monitoring database now draws on income or detailed consumption data from more than one thousand six hundred household surveys across 164 countries in six regions and 25 other high income countries (industrialized economies). While income distribution data are published for all countries with data available, poverty data are published for low- and middle-income countries and countries eligible to receive loans from the World Bank (such as Chile) and recently graduated countries (such as Estonia) only. The aggregated numbers for low- and middle-income countries correspond to the totals of 6 regions in PovcalNet, which include low- and middle-income countries and countries eligible to receive loans from the World Bank (such as Chile) and recently graduated countries (such as Estonia). See PovcalNet (http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/WhatIsNew.aspx) for definitions of geographical regions and industrialized countries.

Contains data from the World Bank's data portal. There is also a consolidated country dataset on HDX.

For countries with an active poverty monitoring program, the World Bank—in collaboration with national institutions, other development agencies, and civil society—regularly conducts analytical work to assess the extent and causes of poverty and inequality, examine the impact of growth and public policy, and review household survey data and measurement methods. Data here includes poverty and inequality measures generated from analytical reports, from national poverty monitoring programs, and from the World Bank’s Development Research Group which has been producing internationally comparable and global poverty estimates and lines since 1990.

As of 2023, South Korea had a Gini coefficient of 0.32 for after-tax income. The Gini coefficient of South Korea has decreased over the past decade. What is the Gini coefficient? The Gini coefficient is a number that ranges from zero to one, used to measure the degree of inequality in income distribution. A Gini coefficient of zero indicates minimum inequality, meaning everyone in the population receives the same adjusted household income. Conversely, a coefficient of one signifies maximum inequality, where one person receives all the adjusted household income while everyone else receives none. Countries typically have a Gini coefficient of income distribution between 0.3 (30 percent) and 0.75 (75 percent). Wealth distribution in South Korea South Korea's economically active population has been increasing over the past decade. Alongside this expansion, the net disposable income in the country has also been rising over the past 20 years. Despite these developments, significant disparities in wealth remain a pressing issue within South Korean society. For example, the wealthiest 10 percent of the population has an average monthly income of more than 11 times higher than that of the poorest 10 percent in 2023.

Contains data from the World Bank's data portal. There is also a consolidated country dataset on HDX.

For countries with an active poverty monitoring program, the World Bank—in collaboration with national institutions, other development agencies, and civil society—regularly conducts analytical work to assess the extent and causes of poverty and inequality, examine the impact of growth and public policy, and review household survey data and measurement methods. Data here includes poverty and inequality measures generated from analytical reports, from national poverty monitoring programs, and from the World Bank’s Development Research Group which has been producing internationally comparable and global poverty estimates and lines since 1990.

0,20 (%) in 2021. Population below $3.1 a day is the percentage of the population living on less than $3.1 a day at 2005 international prices. As a result of revisions in PPP exchange rates, poverty rates for individual countries cannot be compared with poverty rates reported in earlier editions.

This data file includes the Inequality and Poverty Key Figures (as of March 2022), constructed for all Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Study datasets in all waves. It includes multiple national-level measures: • on inequality measures: Gini, Atkinson coefficients, and percentile ratios • on relative poverty rates for various demographic groups • median and mean of disposable household income

This project sought to renew the ESRC's invaluable financial support to LIS (formerly the Luxembourg Income Study) for a period of five more years. LIS is an independent, non-profit cross-national data archive and research institute located in Luxembourg. LIS relies on financial contributions from national science foundations, other research institutions and consortia, data-providing agencies, and supranational organisations to support data harmonisation and enable free and unlimited data access to researchers in the participating countries and to students world-wide. LIS' primary activity is to make harmonised household microdata available to researchers, thus enabling cross-national, interdisciplinary primary research into socio-economic outcomes and their determinants. Users of the Luxembourg Income Study Database and Luxembourg Wealth Study Database come from countries around the globe, including the UK. LIS has four goals: 1) to harmonise microdatasets from high- and middle-income countries that include data on income, wealth, employment, and demography; 2) to provide a secure method for researchers to query data that would otherwise be unavailable due to country-specific privacy restrictions; 3) to create and maintain a remote-execution system that sends research query results quickly back to users at off-site locations; and 4) to enable, facilitate, promote and conduct crossnational comparative research on the social and economic wellbeing of populations across countries. LIS contains the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Database, which includes income data, and the Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS) Database, which focuses on wealth data. LIS currently includes microdata from 46 countries in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australasia. LIS contains over 250 datasets, organised into eight time "waves," spanning the years 1968 to 2011. Since 2007, seventeen more countries have been added to LIS, including the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), Japan, South Korea and a number of other Latin American countries. LWS contains 20 wealth datasets from 12 countries, including the UK, and covers the period 1994 to 2007. All told, LIS and LWS datasets together cover 86% of world GDP and 64% of world population. Users submit statistical queries to the microdatabases using a Java-based job submission interface or standard email. The databases are especially valuable for primary research in that they offer access to cross-national data at the micro-level - at the level of households and persons. Users are economists, sociologists, political scientists, and policy analysts, among others, and they employ a range of statistical approaches and methods. LIS also provides extensive documentation - metadata - for both LIS and LWS, concerning technical aspects of the survey data, the harmonisation process, and the social institutions of income and wealth provision in participating countries. In the next five years, for which support is sought, LIS will: - expand LIS, adding Waves IX (2013) and X (2016), and add new middle-income countries; - develop LWS, adding another wave of datasets to existing countries; acquire new wealth datasets for 14 more countries in cooperation with the European Central Bank (based on the Household Finance and Consumption Survey); - create a state-of-the-art metadata search and storage system; - maintain international standards in data security and data infrastructure systems; - provide high-quality harmonised household microdata to researchers around the world; - enable interdisciplinary cross-national social science research covering 45+ countries, including the UK; - aim to broaden its reach and impact in academic and non-academic circles through focused communications strategies and collaborations.

The aim of the Human Development Report is to stimulate global, regional and national policy-relevant discussions on issues pertinent to human development. Accordingly, the data in the Report require the highest standards of data quality, consistency, international comparability and transparency. The Human Development Report Office (HDRO) fully subscribes to the Principles governing international statistical activities.

The HDI was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone. The HDI can also be used to question national policy choices, asking how two countries with the same level of GNI per capita can end up with different human development outcomes. These contrasts can stimulate debate about government policy priorities. The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions.

The 2019 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) data shed light on the number of people experiencing poverty at regional, national and subnational levels, and reveal inequalities across countries and among the poor themselves.Jointly developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford, the 2019 global MPI offers data for 101 countries, covering 76 percent of the global population. The MPI provides a comprehensive and in-depth picture of global poverty – in all its dimensions – and monitors progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1 – to end poverty in all its forms. It also provides policymakers with the data to respond to the call of Target 1.2, which is to ‘reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women, and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definition'.

Korea Proportion of Population Pushed Below the $1.90: Poverty Line by Out-of-Pocket Health Care Expenditure: 2011 PPP: % data was reported at 0.002 % in 2008. This records a decrease from the previous number of 0.003 % for 2007. Korea Proportion of Population Pushed Below the $1.90: Poverty Line by Out-of-Pocket Health Care Expenditure: 2011 PPP: % data is updated yearly, averaging 0.003 % from Dec 1999 (Median) to 2008, with 7 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 0.013 % in 2004 and a record low of 0.001 % in 1999. Korea Proportion of Population Pushed Below the $1.90: Poverty Line by Out-of-Pocket Health Care Expenditure: 2011 PPP: % data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Korea – Table KR.World Bank: Poverty. Proportion of population pushed below the $1.90 ($ 2011 PPP) poverty line by out-of-pocket health care expenditure, expressed as a percentage of a total population of a country; ; Wagstaff et al. Progress on Impoverishing Health Spending: Results for 122 Countries. A Retrospective Observational Study, Lancet Global Health 2017.; Weighted Average;

As of the first quarter of 2024, the wealthiest ten percent claimed to have a monthly income of around 15.4 million South Korean won. A comparison between the wealthiest and poorest groups revealed that the richest earned over eleven times more than the poorest in South Korea per month.

In 2022, South Korea's elderly population is facing rapidly increasing medical expenses, with total spending reaching around 45.8 trillion won. This marks a staggering 178 percent increase over the past decade, reflecting the growing healthcare needs of the country's aging population. This is putting pressure on the country’s overall spending on healthcare and social welfare. Further, many still struggle financially and cannot solely survive off their savings and pensions. Demographic shift fueling healthcare costs South Korea's elderly population is a key factor behind the growing medical expenses. By 2022, the number of people aged 65 years and over had reached approximately nine million. This figure is projected to more than double by 2050, potentially reaching 19 million by then. The elderly are taking up an increasing share of the total medical expenditure, rising from around 34 percent in 2012 to over 44 percent in 2021. As this demographic continues to expand, healthcare demands and associated costs are likely to rise further, putting pressure on both public and private healthcare resources. Korean society’s role in senior social welfare A 2022 survey found that the majority of people considered the responsibility of caring for elderly parents to lie with the combined forces of family, society, and the government. However, almost one in four held the view that this was primarily the responsibility of each individual family. A similar share of retired seniors was partially financed by support from their children or other relatives, though this number was far lower among those who were still working. Despite this, and the large annual increase in total national pension benefits paid out every year, 61 percent of seniors reported having insufficient means to live comfortably. Such insufficiency has partly led to South Korea having one of the highest relative elderly poverty rates among all OECD countries.

The aim of the Human Development Report is to stimulate global, regional and national policy-relevant discussions on issues pertinent to human development. Accordingly, the data in the Report require the highest standards of data quality, consistency, international comparability and transparency. The Human Development Report Office (HDRO) fully subscribes to the Principles governing international statistical activities.

The HDI was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone. The HDI can also be used to question national policy choices, asking how two countries with the same level of GNI per capita can end up with different human development outcomes. These contrasts can stimulate debate about government policy priorities. The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions.

The 2019 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) data shed light on the number of people experiencing poverty at regional, national and subnational levels, and reveal inequalities across countries and among the poor themselves.Jointly developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford, the 2019 global MPI offers data for 101 countries, covering 76 percent of the global population. The MPI provides a comprehensive and in-depth picture of global poverty – in all its dimensions – and monitors progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1 – to end poverty in all its forms. It also provides policymakers with the data to respond to the call of Target 1.2, which is to ‘reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women, and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definition'.

0,00 (%) in 2021. Population below $1.9 a day is the percentage of the population living on less than $1.9 a day at 2005 international prices. As a result of revisions in PPP exchange rates, poverty rates for individual countries cannot be compared with poverty rates reported in earlier editions.

Income share held by fourth 20% of Republic of Korea climb by 0.87% from 23.00 % in 2020 to 23.20 % in 2021. Since the 1.28% decrease in 2019, income share held by fourth 20% increased by 0.43% in 2021. Percentage share of income or consumption is the share that accrues to subgroups of population indicated by deciles or quintiles. Percentage shares by quintile may not sum to 100 because of rounding.

Korea Increase in Poverty Gap at $3.10: Poverty Line Due To Out-of-Pocket Health Care Expenditure: 2011 PPP: % of Poverty Line data was reported at 0.007 % in 2008. This records a decrease from the previous number of 0.009 % for 2007. Korea Increase in Poverty Gap at $3.10: Poverty Line Due To Out-of-Pocket Health Care Expenditure: 2011 PPP: % of Poverty Line data is updated yearly, averaging 0.009 % from Dec 1999 (Median) to 2008, with 7 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 0.015 % in 2006 and a record low of 0.004 % in 1999. Korea Increase in Poverty Gap at $3.10: Poverty Line Due To Out-of-Pocket Health Care Expenditure: 2011 PPP: % of Poverty Line data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Korea – Table KR.World Bank: Poverty. Increase in poverty gap at $3.10 ($ 2011 PPP) poverty line due to out-of-pocket health care expenditure, as a percentage of the $1.90 poverty line; ; Wagstaff et al. Progress on Impoverishing Health Spending: Results for 122 Countries. A Retrospective Observational Study, Lancet Global Health 2017.; Weighted Average;

Contains data from the World Bank's data portal covering the following topics which also exist as individual datasets on HDX: Agriculture and Rural Development, Aid Effectiveness, Economy and Growth, Education, Energy and Mining, Environment, Financial Sector, Health, Infrastructure, Social Protection and Labor, Poverty, Private Sector, Public Sector, Science and Technology, Social Development, Urban Development, Gender, Millenium development goals, Climate Change, External Debt, Trade.