영세·고령농의 사회안전망 개선방안

Abstract

영세·고령농은 한국농업에서 중요한 비중을 차지해 왔으며 앞으로도 상당기간 그 비중이 더욱 높아질 전망이다. 그러나 그동안 농업구조개선정책을 추진하면서 영세·고령농 문제를 경영이양(탈농?은퇴)의 관점에서 주로 다뤘을 뿐이고, 이들의 농업·농촌부문에서의 역할이나 이들의 생활 안정에 대한 관심과 대책이 부족했다.

그동안 정부에서는 국민들의 기본적인 생활을 보장하기 위해서 국민연금, 국민건강보험, 국민기초생활보장제도, 기초노령연금과 같은 다양한 사회안전망을 마련하여 선진국 수준에 못지않은 외형적 틀을 갖추었다. 그러나 이러한 사회안전망은 농업이나 농촌의 특성을 제대로 반영하지 못했다. 그 결과, 대다수의 영세·고령농은 사회안전망의 밖에 있거나 수혜 정도가 미미하여 사회안정망 사각지대에 놓여 있는 실정이다.

이 연구보고서는 영세·고령농의 사회안전망 수혜 실태와 문제점을 파악하고, 외국의 영세·고령농을 위한 사회안전망제도를 검토하여 정책적 시사점을 도출하여, 우리나라 영세·고령농의 사회안전망을 개선하기 위한 주요 정책과제를 제시하기 위해 작성되었다.

The purposes of this study are to analyze current social safety net for the poor and old farmers, and to suggest policy improvement measures to improve the social safety net. The major research methods include the collection of existing related data, re-analysis of previous field survey data, in-depth interview, and so on. Existing data were collected from related governmental organizations and research institutes. The re-analysis of previous field survey data on 397 poor and old farmers were conducted. The original field survey was conducted among 1,000 elderly residents (aged 65 or older) of 50 rural areas, asking them about their economic activities and social safety. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentage, and means were used to summarize the data of the field survey. In the case of the first social safety net (social insurance), the pension affiliation ratio was 30%. The medical insurance non-recipient ratio was 19.6%. The recipients of employment insurance and industrial accident compensation insurance were very few. In the case of the second social safety net (public assistance), the proportion of recipients in the national basic livelihood security system was only 7.0%. In the case of the third social safety net (urgent support system), most respondents (95.2%) did not know the urgent supporting system. Major problems of social safety net for the poor and old farmers are as follows: 1) unrealistic national basic livelihood security system, 2) insufficient income stabilization measures, 3) insufficient active welfare measures, 4) burdensome medical cost and insurance bill, 5) burdensome personal cost of long-term care insurance for the elderly, 6) residents' low acknowledgement level on the various welfare system. Policy tasks to improve social safety net for the poor and old farmers are as follows: 1) improvement of the exceptional treatment for farmers in the national basic livelihood security system 2) reinforcement of income stabilization support, 3) cultivation of rural social enterprise, 4) improvement of medical insurance bill support system, 5) reduction of medical cost, 6) improvement of the personal cost reduction measure in the long-term care insurance for the elderly, 7) reinforcement of the support system for weak farm households, 8) reinforcement of education and public relations on the social safety net.