Demand for Home Pension and Reverse Mortgage: An Information Provision Survey Experiment

Abstract Population aging and the sustainability of retirement financing are critical challenges facing many developed economies. In South Korea, elderly poverty remains a critical issue, despite widespread homeownership among older adults. Although the home pension program allows retirees to unlock housing wealth, uptake remains below 2 % as of 2024. Using a large-scale survey of adults aged 55–79, we conduct an information provision experiment to assess how policy reforms and belief corrections affect demand. We find that enrollment intention rises by 6 percentage points when monthly pension payments are adjusted with house price changes, and by 5 percentage points when bequest conditions are made more flexible. Notably, merely informing that the fixed monthly payments – often perceived as disadvantageous during housing price increases – do not result in a loss when house prices rise because the amount bequeathed to their children increases accordingly, led to a 7 %p increase in enrollment intention. Our results suggest that addressing informational barriers may be as effective as structural reforms in increasing program uptake.