(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Hyewon Han = Empirical research has shown that the low life satisfaction of non-regular workers stems from structural conditions such as social insurance exclusion and low economic compensation rather than the employment type itself.
The analysis is that expanding the application of social insurance, including employment insurance, and resolving administrative blind spots, rather than only regulating the proportion of regular and non-regular workers, can be a more effective policy measure to improve the quality of life of workers.
According to the Korea Labor Institute on the 30th, Cho Gwang-rae, a researcher at the Seoul Welfare Foundation, presented the results of this study at the 2026 Korea Labor Panel Academic Conference held on the 18th.
Researcher Cho analyzed 19,445 wage workers and 134,971 observations from the Korea Labor Panel data from 1999 to 2025. Among these, the analysis was conducted considering regular workers as regular workers and temporary and daily workers as irregular workers.
Researcher Cho divided the analysis subjects into four groups: ▲ full-time workers enrolled in employment insurance (Group A) ▲ temporary and daily workers enrolled in employment insurance (Group B) ▲ temporary and daily workers not enrolled in employment insurance because the prescribed working hours per week are less than 15 hours (Group C) ▲ temporary and daily workers not enrolled in employment insurance even though they are legally eligible for coverage (Group D).
Their life satisfaction was then analyzed through hierarchical regression analysis, individual/year fixed effects model, and transition matrix analysis.
Looking at the average life satisfaction of the four groups, Group A, which had both employment stability and social insurance protection, showed the highest score of 3.502 points.
Next, group B, who signed up for employment insurance even though they were temporary and daily workers, had a life satisfaction score of 3.346 points, group D, who was not enrolled even though they were legally eligible for insurance, had 3.158 points, and group C, who did not sign up because their weekly working hours were short, had 3.122 points.
Hierarchical regression analysis also showed that employment insurance subscription and wage and health levels significantly reduced the gap in life satisfaction.
When simply comparing regular and irregular workers, the life satisfaction of irregular workers was 0.273 points lower than that of regular workers.
However, when we additionally took into account employment insurance subscription, the gap decreased by about 39% to 0.166 points.
When employment insurance, wages, and health status were added, the satisfaction gap between regular and non-regular workers narrowed again to 0.065 points. This is a 76.1% decrease from the gap when comparing only regular and non-regular workers.
Researcher Cho said, "This means that more than three-quarters of the lower life satisfaction of irregular workers compared to regular workers is explained by structural conditions such as non-subscription to employment insurance, low wages, and health levels. This means that the low quality of life of non-regular workers comes from institutional and economic conditions combined with it rather than the form of contract itself."
There has also been a tendency for many workers to have long-term experiences falling into employment insurance blind spots.
As a result of analyzing 7,926 people who were legally required to sign up for employment insurance but had not actually signed up for Group D at least once, the maximum consecutive period of non-subscription was 3.2 years on average.
Additionally, 21.4% (1,693 people) of Group D were found to have remained unsubscribed for more than five consecutive years.
Based on these results, Research Fellow Cho argued, "Policies that expand social protection for non-regular workers can have a more direct and rapid effect on improving the quality of life than forcing conversion to regular workers."
He emphasized, "The main blind spot groups are ultra-short-time workers of less than 15 hours a week and temporary and daily workers who have difficulty paying insurance premiums due to the size of the business and the nature of the contract." He emphasized, "The design of a system that includes them should be considered first."
The National Assembly revised the Employment Insurance Act early this year to reorganize the employment insurance subscription criteria from the existing working hours system to an income (remuneration)-based system, and the government is currently pursuing follow-up measures such as revising subordinate laws.
