The characteristics of recent demographics of Korea are rapid ageing and retirement of baby boom generation. Korea will enter the age of "super-aged society" by 2026 and it is progressing very rapidly. The baby boom generation, which has led rapid eco...
The characteristics of recent demographics of Korea are rapid ageing and retirement of baby boom generation. Korea will enter the age of "super-aged society" by 2026 and it is progressing very rapidly. The baby boom generation, which has led rapid economic growth in Korea, began to retire from labor market starting around 2010. They are expected to gradually leave the labor market over next 10 years. In addition to aging population, mass retirement of baby boom generation will lead to decrease in workforce, imbalance in supply and demand in asset market and deterioration in financial health, which will in turn have negative effect on economic growth, possibly accompanied by decreased demand for housing. The baby boom generation has significantly high share of real estate in their asset portfolio than financial asset. Therefore, for their retirement fund, they will likely rely on liquidation of real estate asset rather than relying on financial asset or social security system. This will affect the housing price and have adverse consequences on housing market as well as other asset market, which will spill over into overall economic health of society. With this as background, this research will focus on studying the effect of increase in aged population caused by changes in demographics and retirement of baby boom generation in an attempt to determine factors affecting housing price both in theoretical and empirical terms. Furthermore, based on the results of the analysis, policy recommendations will be derived.
This research was conducted using the annual panel data (total of 91 observations) from Seoul and six other large cities collected from the period between 2000 and 2012 and studied the factors affecting housing price in each region. The research methods include both examination of existing literatures and performing empirical analysis based on panel data. In the study of existing literatures, the paper surveys theoretical discussions on demographic changes and housing price. Then, based on the theoretical discussions, related literatures are examined and the uniqueness of this research as compared to existing literatures is reviewed. In terms of empirical method, panel data analysis was performed. In the previous literatures on changes in housing price according to demographic changes, the results vary across different regions. Therefore, in order to analyze similarity and differences in housing prices that incorporate regional characteristics, fixed effect model was used to build a model for housing price based on change in population, income, housing supply and money supply. For explanatory variables for real changes in housing price, population increase rate, household count increase rate and share of elderly population were used. For income change variable, population growth rate of economically active labor force, growth rate of employment, increase in per capita income and unemployment rate were used. In addition, house growth rate and increase in savings rate were used at the same time. The estimated model was divided into six different models depending on use of population and income change, and housing and money supply variables. Model 6, which included all the variables turned out to have the best fit.
The results show that the significant variables for changes in housing price were growth in number of households and the share of elderly people in population. When the share of elderly people in population increases by 1%, housing price declined by 2.45%. Change in income was significant only when money supply was considered simultaneously. Also, when unemployment rose by 1%, housing price fell by 4.7%. Housing supply had wealth effect on housing price at 10% significance level. Assuming that changes in income, housing and money supply that affect housing market are maintained at current level, forecast was made for changes in housing price for different regions taking into account household counts and the share of elderly people in population in 2020. The result showed that decline in housing price was bigger in the model that did not take money supply into account than the model that did take it into account.
Based on the research results above, the following policy recommendations can be made. First, change in household is a variable that has significant impact on housing price. It is expected that Korean family structure will become more and more diverse. Therefore, housing supply plan based on housing consumption pattern must be developed.
Second, since increase in share of elderly people in population leads to decline in housing price, there should be policy efforts to ameliorate share of elderly people in population. Aged Generation and Baby Boom Generation are very likely to liquidate their real estate asset to finance their retirement fund, which will increase in housing supply and consequently decline in real estate market. Therefore, in order to stabilize their life, policies such as expansion in wage peak system, home equity conversion mortgage and expansion in individual pension must be considered so that continuous stream of income can be provided to them.
Third, the second reason for high rate of elderly population is low birth rate, which reduces economically productive population. As low birth rate intensifies population ageing, economically productive labor force declines, which in turn reduces income and consumption. Moreover, it also adversely affects macroeconomic health national finance. With increasing elderly population rate, there is a need for policy to encourage childbirth. There is a need for more diverse ways of supporting married women who has given childbirth such as job placement support and housing support for households with many children when they buy or rent housing.
Fourth, change in income directly and indirectly affects housing price. As the research results show that unemployment rate adversely affects housing price, there should be various policies to increase employment opportunities and lowe unemployment rate. In particular, to help the Baby Boom generation to utilize the strengths they have, there must be efforts to help the obtain employment after retirement, promote socially responsible corporation, raise the retirement age, and increase productivity both at national and local level.
Fifth, housing supply, although low in statistical significance, adverse affects housing price. If selling a house is necessary in order to supply income for consumption, heavy and sudden increase in housing supply as a result of sales cold lead to decline in real estate values. Therefore, it is necessary to distribute sales of real estate asset.
Sixth, when financial market is taken into account, the effect of ageing population on housing price was big, which suggests a close relationship between financial market and housing market. It is expected that the retirement of elderly population will lead to reduced savings and investment, lower economic growth and increase in household debt as a result of fallen income. Therefore, it will not only affect real estate market but also financial market as well. Accordingly, through researches that can identify dynamic relationship between financial and real estate markets and associated impacts, monitoring on volatility of financial market must be reinforced so that impact from real estate market can be identified early on.
Lastly, according to Office of Statistics (2012) on future population and household counts, population change by region vary across regions and it could also affect housing market. If changes in income, money supply and housing supply do not vary across regions, decline in housing price came out different across regions. Therefore, there should be diverse policy recommendations not only at central but also local government level based on comprehensive review of factors such as housing supply, long-term housing demand and institutional support such as diverse lending programs from financial institutions based on researches on housing preference of the Baby Boomer generation.