Declining Poverty Rates Among the Elderly

: Public Pensions and Informal Family Support

Abstract

This study examines the effects of public pensions and informal family support on poverty by using micro-data from the Comprehensive Survey of Livelihood Conditions. Public pensions are supposed to prevent poverty among the elderly and, at the same time, to make them independent from informal family support.

In this paper, we measure the relative poverty rates of the elderly by five income categories. The analysis shows that the poverty reduction effect of public pensions consistently increased from 1985 to 2015 while the poverty reduction effect of living with families decreased substantially, as fewer elderly persons living with their children. The poverty rate for the elderly in terms of disposable income has fallen over the same period, that means the anti-poverty function of public pensions for the elderly has adequately compensated for the declining ability of informal family support.