Publications & Documents

Using micro-data from the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), this paper seeks to answer how age, gender and childbirth are reflected in literacy proficiency, employment prospects and pay, and to which extent labour market outcomes are determined by these demographic profiles rather than education, skills and experience. It finds that literacy skills and tertiary education, objective measures of skills, which are highly correlated with employment and productivity in most OECD countries, do not significantly affect the likelihood of employment in Korea. Work experience and educational level are highly correlated with pay. Age, gender and parenthood are strongly correlated with both pay and employment. The weak link between objective skills and labour market outcomes points to a misallocation of human capital and likely a substantial loss of productivity.

Social protection in Korea is designed around traditional forms of employment and excludes a substantial share of workers in non-standard employment. The resulting social protection gaps compound income inequality and undermine financial sustainability as uninsured persons rely on tax-financed benefits. Besides, Korea’s tax and benefit system discourages taking up or returning to low-paid work from social assistance or unemployment benefits. Expanding the reach of employment insurance while redesigning the tax and benefit system could boost work incentives and reduce inequality and poverty. The elderly poverty rate is persistently high, partly because public pensions and social insurance were introduced relatively recently. Better targeting the means-tested Basic Pension could reduce elderly poverty considerably. Lengthening careers is essential to ensure pension sustainability and adequate retirement income for future retirees. Shifting from a severance pay system to a corporate pension would help improve retirement income and lower employers’ incentives to push for early retirements. Reducing inequalities in access to health and long-term care will require expansion of primary care and affordable quality home-based care. This will also help address the overreliance on hospitals and cope with rising demand.

This review provides policy recommendations on how to improve the Korean pension system, building on the OECD’s best practices in pension design. It details the key features of the Korean pension system and identifies its strengths and weaknesses based on cross-country comparisons. The Korean pension system consists of a mandatory pay-as-you-go public scheme, occupational schemes and voluntary individual schemes. The review also covers the first layer of old-age social protection in Korea. This review is the eighth in the series of OECD Reviews of Pension Systems.

The paper is the first in a series of two papers mapping young people’s environmental sustainability competence in EU and OECD countries that were prepared as background for the forthcoming OECD Skills Outlook 2023 publication. The papers are the results of a collaboration between the OECD Centre for Skills and the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (Unit B4) on students’ environmental sustainability competence. The second paper is titled: ‘The environmental sustainability competence toolbox: From leaving a better planet to our children to leaving better children for our planet’.

The paper is the second in a series of two papers mapping young people’s environmental sustainability competence in EU and OECD countries that were prepared as background for the forthcoming OECD Skills Outlook 2023 publication. The papers are the results of a collaboration between the OECD Centre for Skills and the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (Unit B4) on students’ environmental sustainability competence. The first paper is titled ‘Young people’s environmental sustainability competence: Emotional, cognitive, behavioural and attitudinal dimensions in EU and OECD countries.

Air pollution is a global challenge to people’s health and has severe economic consequences. The region of Northeast Asia is no exception. Across most regions in Japan, and in the entire territories of Korea and China, annual average concentrations of fine particulate matter are above the guideline levels indicated by the World Health Organisation, indicating a risk to health. Policy action to tackle air pollution across the three countries, could prevent air pollution related illnesses and deaths, without affecting economic growth. This report presents projections for the impact of air pollution polices until 2050, with differing levels of regional coordination. Projections for current policies are compared with unilateral policy action, whereby each of the three countries introduce more stringent policies to tackle air pollution; alongside regionally coordinated policy action by all three countries; and policy action on a global level. The report presents the health, agricultural and economic impacts, and identifies considerable benefits from further coordination on air pollution policies, such as with regional and global policy action.

The study is part of the OECD work stream Preparing Regions for Demographic Change, a megatrend that affects several important dimensions of public policy. The following three of them are particular relevant for Korea’s regions and rural places: (i) workforce dimension, (ii) social dimension and (iii) governance dimension. The report consists of three chapters. The first chapter depicts and benchmarks demographic trends in Korea regions against other regions from OECD countries. The second chapter examines a range of policies that can address socio-economic challenges related to demographic trends across the OECD and describes Korea’s current policy approach to manage demographic decline and ageing in regions and rural places. The third chapter identifies recommendations for Korea that can help respond to current economic and demographic trends, and ensure social cohesion. It suggests Korea should aim to develop a clear national rural development strategy, tailor labour policies to rural areas, support rural entrepreneurship, rural SME and the social economy, promote rural innovation and foster local governments’ and communities’ capacity to respond to demographic challenges.

Twenty-first-century health systems will be built around data and information. An integrated health information system enables the secure flow of data to where they can be used to create information and knowledge to advance policy and health system objectives. This report describes the requirements and the benefits of an integrated health information system; outlines the current situation in Korea in the context of progress across OECD countries; and recommends policy and operational changes to overcome barriers to the efficient exchange and sharing of health data and establish an integrated health information system that supports continuous learning, improvement and innovation.

This report was commissioned by Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and carried out jointly by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Korea Energy Economics Institute. The objective of the study was to analyse market design improvements to enable achieving net zero in Korea's power sector, in accordance with the country's long-term decarbonisation objectives. For this the IEA devised a Korea Regional Power System Model to evaluate the emissions implications of the plans laid out in Korea’s 9th Basic Plan for Long-Term Electricity Supply and Demand and the Carbon Neutral Strategy published in 2021. The analysis includes a scenario elaborated by the IEA, based on the World Energy Outlook's Announced Pledges Scenario, to analyse potential for further market improvements. This analysis covers market improvements in areas such as carbon pricing, market price enhancements that better reward lowemissions technologies and security of supply, and market access reforms to ensure the participation of a wider range of new technologies and distributed energy resources.