연령그룹별 가계부채 리스크의 변화: 자산기반 세대 간 자원이전 관점의 분석

초록

This paper analyzes the rapid increase of young adults’ household debt since mid-2010s, focusing on its relationship with the unbalanced demographic structure and financial conditions in Korea. In particular, the household debt problem of near-retirees in mid-2010s and that of young adults in early-2020s may be systematically related with each other. Korea’s young adults are smaller in size compared with baby boomers. This imbalance, associated with the convention of asset (real estate)-based old-age preparation, could be an important reason why young people’s debt has increased so drastically. From the viewpoint of national transfer accounts, imbalances in demographic structure caused by population aging could raise young adults’ household debt risks as long as asset prices do not sufficiently adjust. This paper tries to empirically see this possibility by constructing indexes for support-burden and easiness of getting support for each age group and by analyzing the relationship between these indexes and variables such as household debt and debt-income ratios using the KLIPS data. Panel analyses for 2000-2020 show that the support-burden index has a positive relationship with debt levels, debt-income ratios, and the probability of having debt. This results hold for panels of both 5-year age groups and individual households. Particularly in the years after 2014 when the financial environment turned loose, the effect of support-burden index becomes larger and more significant. This asset-based support-burden effect shows the possibility that, when the size of young adults is shrinking, the elderly’s debt burden and risks tend to be transferred to the young through real estate and related financial markets by means of home sales, onerous gifts, and loan principal and interests.

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