A Study on the Assets of Korean Baby Boomer and the Public Pension
Authors:   Asia-Europe Perspective Association, Hwang Soonki 
Published: June 2018

The Baby Boomer in Korea is the generation known to be born 1955-1963, 46-54 years old, and they will reach the age limit between the years of 2012 and 2020 assuming they retire at the age of 57. The number of Baby Boomer Generation amounts to 7.13 million, 14.7% of 48.45 million, the total population (estimated in 2009) very large in number. The Baby Boomer Generation play a pivotal role in consumption and production in Korean society until now. The number of employed person of Baby Boomer Generation is about 5.32 million people and wage workers except both self-employed and unpaid workers are about 3.12 million people. This wage workers are expected to retire from 2010 to 2018. It is expected to the Korean society will be taken about three times shock than that of Japan, compared to the Japanese society got the very big shock as the Baby Boomer Generation who has a 5% share in Japanese population is retired in the Japanese society. On the other hand, the Baby Boomer Generation is and will be influencing on so much aspects of social life such as economic demand and supply, consumption, leisure, culture, and social welfare. So, The Korean Baby Boomer Generation will soon leave from their workforce as they reach the retirement age and many people are interested in the Baby Boomer Generation retirement. Meanwhile, fertility rate is decreasing rapidly as a result of change of social environment, such as women's high educational level achievement and participation in economic activities, late marriage in life and transformation of women's life style. Since the mid-1990s, Korea has recorded low population growth rate. Based on the data provided by the Statistical Korea, Korea may be even confronted with decreasing trends in the total population at the end of 2010s. In addition, Korea may experience the hyper-aged society in the mid-2020s and Korean society is becoming the most rapidly aging society in the world. This coupled with the low fertility rate, many cause a serious social problem as well as the social welfare issues among the Korean population. In the future, Korean population will be rapidly aging while producing population declines. As a result, lots of unpredicted events would take place, and it is too sure that this changing of population structure may affect our economy and asset market. Especially the Baby Boomer Generation is facing the limitation of preparation for old age. Generally the generation of parents of the Baby Boomer Generation believed that devotion to family was the greatest value. They also generally believed that they can be dependent upon their children when they are old. However, the Baby Boomer Generation cannot take it for granted that their children will support them, due to the changed attitude toward supporting. They need to prepare for their aged life themselves, and the preparation should start as early as possible. But retirement planning of the Baby Boomer Generation is long way to go in Korea society until now. This paper explore provision and asset of the Baby Boomer Generation for later life for elderly and role of public pension for later life around the Baby Boomer Generation who incorporated into elderly and played a key role in ageing society of Korea. The findings in this paper indicate that first, 80% of the Baby Boomer Generation is preparing for elderly and 38.5%among them is the most using public pension like National Pension, followed by deposits (24.3%), private pension (19.5%), others (7.1%). The number that person who think their income will be increase in future is more than twice the number that person who think their income will be decrease or same in future. The property will continue to decline in future and there are worries it won't be able to provide for retirement. Especially, the Baby Boomer Generation needs life cycle management for their assets, considering the Baby Boomer Generation leads the ageing society.