농촌 노인 생활인프라 접근성의 지역 간 격차 - 생활편익시설을 중심으로 -

Disparity of Access to Neighborhood Facilities for the Elderly in Rural Areas - Focusing on Community Facilities -

The purpose of this study was to identify the conditions of neighborhood facilities for the elderly, paying special attention to the accelerated aging phenomenon in rural areas of Korea. We contrived a new index to measure spatial accessibility for people aged over 65 years, and we analyzed spatial accessibility by focusing on community facilities: public bath facilities, beauty shops, rural public facilities, markets, big stores, and large-scale retail shops. The most outstanding spatial accessibility among community facilities was found with the rural public facilities thanks to governmental installing adequate facilities in the past, followed by the beauty shops and the public bath facilities. In contrast, spatial accessibility of the markets was in the lowest. Spatial accessibility of community facilities for the elderly exhibited high variability among the rural areas. We confirmed significant inequality of spatial accessibility in all facilities we studied. The areas that had better spatial accessibility diverse combinations of the facilities. The areas that had worse spatial accessibility were, on the whole, consistent with traditional undeveloped regions. In the near future rational planning of facilities will be needed to supply adequate accessibility in targeted areas which currently had low accessibility. In order to improve the spatial accessibility of neighborhood facilities, the most essential factor is to take into account the geographical distribution patterns of rural settlements.