With Korea’s population rapidly aging — 12.2% of its population is elderly now, and that is expected to pass 14% by 2018 — there is a lot of talk about the welfare of older Koreans (like in this JoongAng column today). But as this international survey makes clear, this is one area in which Korea is terribly behind.

According to the Global Age Watch Index, Korea was ranked just 67th for the well being of its elderly population. Most of that is driven by income insecurity, in which Korea ranked 90th.

Suddenly Park Geun-hye’s promise of 200,000 won/month for all elderly citizens makes a lot more moral sense … and it is clear why it was so much more expensive than she anticipated.

Happy to see that Canada was 5th.  Interesting that Japan ranked 10th. I’m surprised that Japan did so poorly on income security (27th). It was health that really helped it ranking.

With parents in Canada and in-laws in Korea, the difference is pretty clear to me. One problem with Korea have grown so much, so fast (and, for many years, so young) is that it never really put in place infrastructure for older citizens. That is going to be a major challenge in the years ahead. But, really, for a country as successful as Korea, the current state of things clearly is not acceptable.