Gyeonggi Province implemented the youth basic income project on April 1, 2019. The youth basic income policy refers to the project of paying 250,000 won per quarter and up to 1 million won per year in local currency to individuals aged 24 who have continued to live with resident registration for more than three years or have lived in total for more than 10 years in Gyeonggi Province.
About 175,000 people are eligible to pay basic income for young people in Gyeonggi Province. Among them, 124,335 people applied for the first quarter. The groups to which this study is to be investigated are these applicants. The analysis of policy effects on young people receiving basic income in Gyeonggi Province needs to be compared through the comparison group. Therefore, the group targeted young people aged 24 in Gyeonggi Province and 24 across the country excluding Gyeonggi Province.
The survey methods were both quantitative and qualitative.
For the quantitative survey, the method was to distribute the structured questionnaire to the survey participants. The questionnaire was asked to ensure that pre- and post-survey were the same, except for the adjustment parts according to the time difference, so that the panel data could be established. Moreover, comparative groups (24 years old) outside Gyeonggi-do were designed to be conducted in the same quantity as above. A total of 63,300 young people, aged 24, responded to the preliminary survey after applying for payment of basic income for young people in Gyeonggi Province, an experimental group. Of these pre-survey respondents, 32,687 responded to the post-survey. Thus, the panel data, consisting of responses from a total of 32,687 young respondents, could be built. For a comparison group, the pre-survey was available for 1,300 samples, 900 of whom responded to the post-survey. Thus, the comparison group deployed 900 panel data.
The qualitative survey did not deal with the comparison group, but only for Gyeonggi Province youths (aged 24). This is because it was determined that there was no need to conduct qualitative surveys on objects (the comparative group) that had not been experienced in practice. A total of six groups were divided into qualitative surveys and five or so persons per group participated in the discussion. These were investigated in a Focus Group discussion (FGD). The format of the questions was defined, but the 'semi-structuralization' method was chosen to recognize the discretion of the moderator.
The selection of young people subject to the FGD was conducted by the research company, and only if the selection criteria were applied to be applied and randomly selected and accepted. Based on the selection criteria, they used a job status, level of academic background, whether they attended or graduated from school, and experience in public assistance. In view of regional survey, the system was also required to be evenly deployed in five areas of Gyeonggi-do, namely, Gyeongwon District, Gyeongui District, Dongbu District, and Seohae Coastal District.
The six FGI groups, which were formed to conduct a qualitative survey on young people aged 24 in Gyeonggi Province, were composed of four high school graduates, seven high school graduates or more, five high school graduates or less, six unemployed workers or more, six college students or six public aids.
The results of the survey analysis are as follows.
First, in the case of quantitative research, five categories of analysis were used: happiness, health and diet, recognition and attitude, economic activity, and dream-capital, and differences between experimental groups and comparison groups of individual variables in that category were analyzed using response sample t-test and independent sample t-test. The results showed that the policy effect of the basic income of young people in Gyeonggi Province is generally positive in a variety of ways. Here are some of the typical ones.
1. It greatly improves the overall satisfaction of the life of young people in Gyeonggi-do, value awareness of what they are doing, and happiness level.
2. The awareness and attitude of young people in Gyeonggi Province are also having a positive effect.
3. It shows positive effects on overall welfare awareness and attitude toward basic income receiving targets.
4. Young people's perception and attitude toward basic income are also changing positively.
5. As for the nationwide expansion of basic income, it is positive, but rather reserved about the need to expand basic income to the people.
6. The effect of youth basic income related to labor motivation is positive.
7. The dream-capital level of young people in Gyeonggi Province is showing high overall.
Second, in the case of qualitative surveys, the following results were obtained by conducting FGDs on the experiences of basic ifor young people, thinking about basic income, understanding of young people's lives and four other parts.
1. Youth basic income recipients do not see much improvement in the current youth basic income policy in Gyeonggi Province.
2. There were regional and merchant size restrictions due to inconvenience. However, this is derived from the original policy goal.
3. In particular, the hassle of applying for each quarter has been raised, which has improved since the fourth quarter.
4. It is still premature to expand the basic income to the entire provincial population, even within Gyeonggi Province.
5. The majority of participants are either unfamiliar with the meaning of basic income or prefer selective welfare that is still prevalent in our society. As such, it is necessary to strengthen policy promotion on basic income.
In conclusion, it can be said that the youth basic income of Gyeonggi Province has a positive effect on young recipients. Young recipients are also showing a fairly positive response to local currency. Although in some areas, the post-survey may be worse than ante or have no positive effect on comparative groups, they have generally been less statistically significant, except in a small proportion.