Author: Duk Gyoo Kim(Yonsei University), In Do Hwang(Bank of Korea)

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Elderly poverty is a distinctive issue associated with the population structure changes in South Korea, one of the fastest aging countries. Recent studies estimate that the elderly poverty rate would substantially decrease if they collateralize illiquid assets by adopting the existing schemes such as home pension. Somewhat strikingly, the enrollment rate of the home pension among the eligible elderly is less than 2%. We conduct an information provision survey experiment to examine how additional features or the change of the stereotypical beliefs about the home pension would affect their intention to demand it. We found that the intention of enrollment increases by 6%p if the home pension scheme is reformed to periodically redetermine the monthly pension payment based on the changes of the house price and by 5%p if it is reformed so that the remaining house value can be bequeathed to their children more easily. A more interesting finding is that merely informing that the fixed monthly payments, which do not adjust to later rises in house prices, do not result in a loss when house prices rise—because the amount bequeathed to their children increases accordingly—led to a 7%p increase in enrollment intention. Our findings suggest that reconciling some of the concerns about the uptake of the home pension is as effective as the policy reforms that could have been considered most effective.