• 한국노년학
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.281-291
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• 2017

The present study aimed to investigate the rate of unmet healthcare needs for elderly over the age of 65 years, as well as analyze the relevance between employment status and unmet healthcare needs due to financial reasons. With regard to the study method, a logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the correlation between employment status and unmet healthcare needs due to financial reasons, targeting 5,528 subjects over the age of 65 years. The results showed that the rate of unmet healthcare needs was 18.9%, in which the rate of unmet healthcare needs due to financial reason was 8.1%. The rate of unmet health needs was higher for temporary workers(ORs=1.75) than for retirement workers. However, the rate of unmet healthcare needs caused by financial reasons was higher among day workers(ORs=1.92). In conclusion, in order to prevent unmet healthcare needs for senior Korean patients, it is necessary to not only improve the income security system for the elderly, but also improve the occupational form and level of income of these economically active citizens, considering the increase in average life expectancy. Moreover, it is also necessary to reinforce health insurance coverage systems for settling medical expenses.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.67-76
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• 2022

The furniture industry has a high possibility to create value-added and a high potential to create new occupations due to the characteristics of the industry, which mainly consists of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, the used furniture, which has sufficient reuse value, is also crushed and used as solid refuse fuel (SRF) recently. Besides, the number of waste treatment companies continues to decrease, and it occurs congestion of wood waste. As a way to solve the issue, a business model development of remanufacturing used furniture can be suggested as an alternative due to its high circular economic efficiency. Remanufacturing business including furniture industry creates positive effects in various aspects such as economic, environmental and job creation. In other words, remanufacturing is an effective recycling way to reduce input resources and energy in the production process. The results of economic analysis show that the expected annual revenue from the single worker furniture remanufacturing site was 104 million won which is 3.11 times more than the average income of a single-worker household in Korea and its B/C ratio was estimated about 30 which means high business feasibility. Revenue through furniture remanufacturing also showed 320 times higher than that of SRF production from the perspective of weight. In addition, it is shown that the GHGs reduction from the furniture remanufacturing is 2.2 ton CO₂-eq. per year, which is similar to the amount of GHGs absorption effect of 937 pine trees or 622 Korean oak trees annually. Thus the results of this study demonstrate that it is important to adopt an appropriate recycling method considering the economic and environmental effects at the end-of-life stage.