In general, women are prone to poverty as they get old due to inequalities both in the level of incomes and employment conditions. Moreover, the current national pension system tends to be sexually discriminatory in that it excludes elderly women or w...
In general, women are prone to poverty as they get old due to inequalities both in the level of incomes and employment conditions. Moreover, the current national pension system tends to be sexually discriminatory in that it excludes elderly women or works against them, since it is based on a source of family incomes which is usually men in a family. The existing pension system offers limited enrollment scope of to women, thus alienates them from the public system. Hence, it becomes one of the factors that deepen the poverty of elderly women, and creates a social phenomenon that women should depend on government aid while men live on social insurance, national pensions. Considering structural changes in family, such as a growing rats of divoce, and an increasing number of unmarried coupls living together and broken families, and socio-economic changes like an improved level of woman's education and more female participation in economic activities, this paper will make some suggestions as follows: 1) to introduce basic pension system which guarantees incomes for the elderly by 'one pension per person' policy; 2) to enlarge voluntary enrollment; 3) to enlarge application in economic activities; 4) to implement pension credit system which pays women allowances for childbirth and upbringing; 5) to improve ways of allotting retirement pension of woman's husband; also to provide an elderly woman both with a divided pension that derives from her husband's pension and an old-age pension of her own; and to pay housewives upbringing allowances, parent allowances, spouse allowances and family allowances, which will ultimately prevent a family from dismantling due to financial problems, and promote a sound family.