IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v16y2019i19p3580-d270429.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Income Volatility and Depressive Symptoms among Elderly Koreans

Author

Listed:
  • Sujin Kim

    (Department of Health Care Policy Research, Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, Sejong 30147, Korea
    Institute of Health and Environment, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Korea)

  • S.V. Subramanian

    (Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
    Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, 9 Bow Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA)

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between volatile income and depression, and moderating effects of living arrangements among older adults in South Korea. Using the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging, we studied 4123 adults aged 60 or older. Income volatility was defined as the variance of logged income across four assessments from 2006 to 2012. Depression was measured as the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scores in 2012. It was examined whether income volatility was related to depressive symptoms, and whether the association depended on co-residence with children. In results, income volatility was not related to CES-D scores in main-effect models without an interaction term. The relationship between income volatility and depressive symptoms depended on co-residence with children ( p < 0.001). Higher income volatility was linked to increased risks of CES-D scores among the elderly living without children (incident rate ratio (IRR): 1.27, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.07–1.50, p -value: 0.005) whereas it was related to lower CES-D scores among those co-residing with children (IRR: 0.68, 95% CI: 0.52–0.88, p -value: 0.003). Absolute income volatility has detrimental psychological consequences for older adults who live on their own. The finding implies that social protection policies for elderly households that live with an unstable income are needed.

Suggested Citation

  • Sujin Kim & S.V. Subramanian, 2019. "Income Volatility and Depressive Symptoms among Elderly Koreans," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-12, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:19:p:3580-:d:270429
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/19/3580/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/19/3580/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Randall S. Jones & Satoshi Urasawa, 2014. "Reducing the High Rate of Poverty Among the Elderly in Korea," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1163, OECD Publishing.
    2. Soong-Nang Jang & Sung-Il Cho & Jiyeun Chang & Kachung Boo & Hyun-Goo Shin & Hyejung Lee & Lisa F. Berkman, 2009. "Employment Status and Depressive Symptoms in Koreans: Results From a Baseline Survey of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 64(5), pages 677-683.
    3. Orazio P. Attanasio & Guglielmo Weber, 2010. "Consumption and Saving: Models of Intertemporal Allocation and Their Implications for Public Policy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(3), pages 693-751, September.
    4. Böhme, Marcus H. & Persian, Ruth & Stöhr, Tobias, 2015. "Alone but better off? Adult child migration and health of elderly parents in Moldova," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 211-227.
    5. Christopher D. Carroll, 1994. "How does Future Income Affect Current Consumption?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 111-147.
    6. Meghir, Costas & Pistaferri, Luigi, 2011. "Earnings, Consumption and Life Cycle Choices," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 9, pages 773-854, Elsevier.
    7. Peter Gottschalk & Robert Moffitt, 1994. "The Growth of Earnings Instability in the U.S. Labor Market," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 25(2), pages 217-272.
    8. Eibich, Peter, 2015. "Understanding the effect of retirement on health: Mechanisms and heterogeneity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 1-12.
    9. Basu, S., 2017. "Income Volatility: A Preventable Public Health Threat," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 107(12), pages 1898-1899.
    10. Frederick J. Zimmerman & Wayne Katon, 2005. "Socioeconomic status, depression disparities, and financial strain: what lies behind the income‐depression relationship?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(12), pages 1197-1215, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ina Schöllgen & Norbert Kersten & Uwe Rose, 2019. "Income Trajectories and Subjective Well-Being: Linking Administrative Records and Survey Data," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(23), pages 1-14, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cappellari, Lorenzo & Jenkins, Stephen P., 2014. "Earnings and labour market volatility in Britain, with a transatlantic comparison," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 201-211.
    2. Cappellari, Lorenzo & Jenkins, Stephen P., 2014. "Earnings and labour market volatility in Britain, with a transatlantic comparison," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 201-211.
    3. John Carter Braxton & Kyle F. Herkenhoff & Jonathan Rothbaum & Lawrence Schmidt, 2021. "Changing Income Risk across the US Skill Distribution: Evidence from a Generalized Kalman Filter," Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers 55, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    4. Niizeki, Takeshi & Hamaaki, Junya, 2023. "Do the self-employed underreport their income? Evidence from Japanese panel data," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    5. Jonathan Fisher & Bradley L. Hardy, 2023. "Money matters: consumption variability across the income distribution," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(3), pages 275-298, September.
    6. Etgeton, Stefan & Fischer, Björn & Ye, Han, 2023. "The effect of increasing retirement age on households’ savings and consumption expenditure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    7. Gizem Koşar & Wilbert van der Klaauw, 2025. "Workers’ Perceptions of Earnings Growth and Employment Risk," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(S1), pages 83-121.
    8. Paula Garda & Volker Ziemann, 2014. "Economic Policies and Microeconomic Stability: A Literature Review and Some Empirics," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1115, OECD Publishing.
    9. Giesecke, Matthias & Bönke, Timm & Lüthen, Holger, 2011. "The Dynamics of Earnings in Germany: Evidence from Social Security Records," VfS Annual Conference 2011 (Frankfurt, Main): The Order of the World Economy - Lessons from the Crisis 48692, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Feigenbaum James A. & Li Geng, 2012. "Life Cycle Dynamics of Income Uncertainty and Consumption," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-49, May.
    11. Christian Dudel & Julian Schmied, 2019. "Pension adequacy standards: an empirical estimation strategy and results for the United States and Germany," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2019-003, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    12. Lugilde, Alba, 2018. "Does income uncertainty affect Spanish household consumption?," MPRA Paper 87110, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Tao Wang, 2023. "Perceived versus Calibrated Income Risks in Heterogeneous-Agent Consumption Models," Staff Working Papers 23-59, Bank of Canada.
    14. Edmund Crawley & Martin Holm & Håkon Tretvoll, 2022. "A Parsimonious Model of Idiosyncratic Income," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2022-026, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Asuamah Yeboah, Samuel, 2024. "Navigating Scarcity: An Analysis of Expenditure Patterns Among Low-Income Households," MPRA Paper 122642, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 18 Oct 2024.
    16. Krebs, Tom & Yao, Yao, 2016. "Labor Market Risk in Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 9869, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Madeira, Carlos, 2018. "Explaining the cyclical volatility of consumer debt risk using a heterogeneous agents model: The case of Chile," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 209-220.
    18. Stephen Jenkins & Peter Lambert, 2011. "Robert Moffitt and Peter Gottschalk’s 1995 paper ‘Trends in the covariance structure of earnings in the US: 1969–1987’," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(3), pages 433-437, September.
    19. Tran Nguyen Van, 2022. "Understanding Household Consumption Behaviour: What do we Learn from a Developing Country?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 22(4), pages 801-858, October.
    20. Bradley Hardy, 2014. "Childhood Income Volatility and Adult Outcomes," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(5), pages 1641-1665, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:19:p:3580-:d:270429. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.