6 out of 10 Disabled People Own Homes... Household Income 41.54 Million Won

2.517 million people with disabilities as of 2018... 5.0% of total population
Employment rate 34.9% as of 2019... Highest at 58.4% in 40s
Top priority in disability welfare projects is 'Medical and Rehabilitation Support Services'

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwangho Lee] It was found that 6 out of 10 households with disabled persons own their homes. Their household income is 41.53 million KRW, which is 71.3% of the total households' income, and the employment rate is 34.9%, slightly more than half of the overall population employment rate (60.9%).

According to the '2020 Statistics on the Lives of Disabled Persons' released by Statistics Korea on the 24th, as of 2018, disabled persons accounted for 5.0% of the total population, totaling 2,517,000 people, meaning 5 out of every 100 people in the nation are disabled.

Among disabled persons, 6 out of 10 (58.3%) are aged 60 or older, with the elderly proportion about three times higher than that of non-disabled persons (19.7%). 57.8% of the disabled population are male, which is more than females, whereas among non-disabled persons, males account for 49.5%, fewer than females.

The types of disabilities are in order: physical disability (48.1%), hearing impairment (13.2%), visual impairment (9.8%), and brain lesion disability (9.8%). Among disabled persons, 6 out of 10 (63.6%) have mild disabilities.

Regarding housing types, both disabled and non-disabled households live mostly in apartments, detached houses, and multi-family houses in that order, but disabled households have a relatively higher proportion living in detached houses.

The home ownership rate of disabled households is 62.2%, which is 6.7 percentage points higher than that of non-disabled households (55.5%), with the largest difference (18.9 percentage points) seen in household heads under 30 years old.

As of 2019, the employment rate of disabled persons was 34.9%, slightly more than half of the overall population employment rate, with the highest employment rate by age group being those in their 40s at 58.4%, followed by those in their 30s (53.4%), 50s (53.2%), and under 30 (30.6%).

As of 2018, the proportion of jobs by age among disabled persons was highest for those aged 60 and over (37.3%), followed by those in their 50s (30.3%) and 40s (18.4%), reflecting the characteristic structure of the disabled population with many elderly persons.

The income of disabled households was 41.53 million KRW, a 0.1% increase from the previous year, while the total households' income was 58.28 million KRW, a 2.2% increase. Consumption expenditure of disabled households increased by 2.7% from the previous year to 20.22 million KRW, which is 75.1% of the total households' expenditure (26.92 million KRW), which increased by 3.5%.

Meanwhile, as of 2017, disabled persons wanted assistance most in daily living activities such as cleaning (37.7%), using transportation (37.3%), preparing meals (36.4%), and doing laundry (36.2%).

In 2019, both disabled and non-disabled persons identified medical and rehabilitation support services as the top priority welfare projects for disabled persons to be expanded first.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.