Ⅰ. Prologue: Korea Welfare Panel and Background 1

Ⅱ. Overviews 7
1. Sampling 9
2. Questionnaires 11
3. Interviewers and Survey Method 12
4. Improvements Made to KOWEPS 2017 12

Ⅲ. KOWEPS 2017: Basic Analysis 15
1. General Characteristics and Economic Activity of Households 17
2. Economic Activity of Household Members 19
3. Household Economics: Income and Expenditure 22
4. Housing and Health 26
5. Family Relations and Living Conditions 28
6. Social Security 30

Ⅳ. Longitudinal Analysis 33
1. Poverty and Income Mobility 35
2. Factors of Marriage and Childbirth 40
V. Objectives of the KOWEPS 47
 

Social welfare policy should cope flexibly with the changes in people's economic status, consumption expenditures, value judgments, and the status of economy-wide income distribution, poverty and inequality. However, existing cross-sectional survey data are not suffice to analyze the socio-economic dynamics because their inability to identify the age effect and the cohort effect. In order to overcome such limitations, Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA) and Seoul National University (SNU) begun ‘Korea Welfare Panel Study (KOWEPS)’ in 2006.

 In 2017, 12th wave of KOWEPS has carried out. The descriptive report provides a wide variety of contents about the general features, economic conditions, employment status, social security, welfare needs and special topic for the 12th year survey. And this descriptive report provides some results from longitudinal analysis. The results could be a reference for the researchers who try to use KOWEPS.