Urban Poverty in an East Asian Welfare State: Challenges faced by the elderly population in Seoul

Abstract

Among the OECD countries, South Korea has the highest percentage of senior citizens who are under poverty. Many of them reside in slum-like communities in cities including Seoul. One of Seoul’s district, Jongno, is located at the center of the city and is home to two of the five slum neighborhoods. Poverty is a multidimensional issue that needs to be defined by the complex social relations that govern it, as Maia Green noted. In addition, according to Appadurai, the poor’s lack of capacities, which indicate the ability to map pathways to the fulfillment of goals to escape their plight, is responsible for the poor entering the cycle of poverty. The increasing shift away from the traditional ‘developmentaluniversalist’ welfare regime means the elderly poor need to navigate through the environment of poverty with limited resources. The aims of this study were to determine what the senior poor considered as the most pressing issue in urban elderly poverty and discover the methods they use to ameliorate their deprivation. Life histories, semi-structured interviews, discourse analysis, participant observation and neighborhood walks were conducted. In this study, housing was considered the most pressing issue in urban elderly poverty, and loneliness was a problem that seniors underrated. Respondents were shown to rely heavily on outside services to cover deficiencies, most notably wandering around Seoul to collect coins at various churches. The research revealed that mobility through free subway rides is paramount to receiving services, and passive sociality is an important aspect in daily rituals. The findings are presented such that they can be used as an aid to further research on elderly urban poverty in Korea.