(EDITORIAL from Korea Times on May 25)

Alarm over poor elders
Korean elderly citizens remain OECD's poorest

Rarely is it a good sign when the same message gets repeated over and over.

Yet again, a report issued by the rich-nations group said that Korea's older citizens are the poorest among the 34 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The latest OECD report found that for Korean citizens aged 65 or older, the poverty rate was 49.6 percent in 2012, nearly four times higher than the OECD average of 12.6 percent.

Translated, this means more than 49 of every 100 Korean elderly households earn 50 percent or less than the median household disposable income ? or one out of every two older people are living in poverty.

It is a social fact not to be taken lightly when the annual increase in population in this age group is 4.2 percent, the highest in the world. By 2017, those aged 65 or older are expected to make up 14 percent or more of the population and by 2026, 20 percent or more.

At this rate, no Korean could confidently boast that their senior years will be comfortable. Unlike the older citizens in "rich" countries who enjoy layers of social safety net, most of those aged 55 to 79 receive less than 250,000 won in a monthly pension or no pension at all, according to 2014 Statistics Korea data.

With their economic well-being challenged, older Koreans are silently taking their lives rather than live unsafe and in uncertainty throughout old age. The national average suicide rate in Korea is 29.1 per 100,000 citizens, but the rate for older Koreans is 82 out of every 100,000. When broken down, the rate for these "silent deaths" in men is appalling. For men aged 60 to 69 the rate stood at 64.6; for those aged 70 to 79 it was 110.4; and for those 80 and older it was 168.9.

The sad and shameful reality will not be easy to address when income inequality in Korea, as in other OECD member nations, widens. Yet, over the years, it has been largely left to families or individuals whose lifestyles and values no longer support older parents, which threatens to plunge the situation into a national disaster.

The changing societal landscape compels the government to better strike a balance between maintaining fiscal health and providing answers to the fast-changing social fabric.

Recently, legislators working to reform the civil servants' pension scheme agreed to set up a social body to address increasing overall benefits in the national pension plan. Policymakers must realize the urgency of tackling the plight of the destitute older population. They should revamp the civil servants pension scheme, and ultimately the national pension plan, in way that ensures a better standard of living for older citizens without creating a deficit.
(END)