• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.116-127
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• 2013

Korea, like most of other countries, is enforcing the national pension as social insurance which is a kind of the income policy. Despite the fundamental limitation on public pension or the imperfect policy, the guarantee of the minimum living standard for maintaining dignity of human being is not being reached for the standard. Poverty rate of the elderly in Korea is the first among the OECD countries and public pension dead zone is very large. The elderly low income class could become a serious social problem if low fertility and aging keep getting worse. In this study, I will analyze the present condition of the retirement security for the elderly in South Korea. Also, I will look into the present situation of old-age income security and determine problems, and propose the improvement devices for related laws.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.137-147
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• 2005

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate physical health status. depression. activities of daily living (ADL & IADL) of the low-income elderly who live alone in urban areas. Method: The subjects were the 400 low-income elders who live alone in Daegu city and the following instruments were used: 1. The number of self-reported physical health problems and present diseases: 2. CES-D scale for depression by Jo Nam-Oak et al. (1998): and 3. ADL scale by Katz (1989) and IADL scale by Lawton and Brody (1969). Results: 1. Visual difficulty was the most prevailing problem (55.3%) among physical problems. the second bowel elimination and the third hearing disturbance. As for present diseases. arthritis (26.5%), hypertension(24.3%) and DM (11.8%) were the most common diseases. 2. There were significant differences in physical health status according to age (t=3.115. p=.045). kind of medical security (t=-1.973. p=.049). perceived life satisfaction (F=4.966. p=.007) and the number of present diseases (F=2.937. p=.033). 3. There were significant differences in depression according to sex (t=-3.758. p=.000) . kind of medical security (t=-4.368. p=.000). perceived life satisfaction (F=35.743. p=.000) and the number of present diseases (F=4.246. p=.006). 4. There were significant differences in ADL according to sex (t=-2.136. p=.033) and age (F=4.863. p=.008). and in IADL according to sex (t=4.552, p=.000), age (F=3.090. p=.047) and kind of medical security (t=-3.306. p=.001). 5. Physical health state was correlated positively with both the number of present diseases (r=.140. p=.005) and depression (r=.352. p=.000), and negatively with ADL (r=-.176. p= .000) and IADL (r= -.230. p=.000). Depression was correlated positively with the number of present diseases (r=.169. p=.001) and negatively with both ADL (r=-.139. p=.005) and IADL (r=-.203. p= .000). Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that general characteristics are important factors for physical health status, depression. ADL and IADL of the low-income elderly who live alone and there are close relations among physical health status, the number of diseases, depression, ADL and IADL. Therefore, these results must be reflected in community health programs for the low-income elderly who live alone. In addition, this kind of study must be extended to the low-income elderly who live alone in rural areas.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.169-188
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• 2011

The primary focus of this study was on the issues associated with family and economic decision-making, in particular for the elderlyhood which might have to (or could be) share the family resources. This study regarded willingness to consider applying for Reverse Mortgage as an economic decision-making. The data was collected by interviewing 320 persons (over age 55) living in metropolitan areas in 2008. We selected 227 cases to find the influence of family, having both spouse and adult-children. We have used a theory of Planned Behavior by Fishbein to analysis three research questions. The results are as follows : first, the results partially explain willingness to consider applying for reverse mortgage using Fishbein's theory. Second, several results indicated that economic decision-makings within the family are influenced by several factors relating to other family member's view. They means that some of Subjective Norm variables, of Attitude Behavior ones, and of Perceived Behavior Control ones. Third, the result shows men and women respond differently to consider to applying for that policy. Men are conscious of the other people, i.e., friends, relatives except close family members, and, on the other hand, women are mindful of close family members, i.e., adult children. Forth, the group who have lower income showed higher intentions to consider that policy, when they have adult-children. Fifth, according to age group, pre-elderly group are influenced by consent of adult-children, a level of education, and on the other hand, elderly group are influenced by the other people, i.e., friends, relatives, a level of education, and so on. These results meaned that these distinct characteristics should be considered to establish Income Security policy for the pre-elderly and the elderly.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.195-210
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• 2002

The purpose of this study were to find out the difference of needs of caring between care-givers and non care-givers, and to suggest the way of lessening vigorous task of care-givers for the elderly with dementia. Data were collected from 130 nationwide respondents intentionally divided into two groups; care-givers and non care-givers in the middle aged with middle and upper income. Collected data were analyzed by frequency, percentage, t-test using SPSS package. Since the result of survey, unexpectedly, showed no difference between two groups, it could be explained as that these two groups commonly had same needs of caring for the elderly with dementia. Major findings were as follow; 1) Most Koreans stiff thought family should be the main care-giver for the elderly with dementia prior to nation or society. 2) Responsibility of caring for the elderly with dementia would be better to be shared with children instead of focusing to a child. 3) They thought ideal residential facilities for the elderly with dementia were small-scale professional dementia facility(group home) rather than home or general elderly housing. 4) Professional dementia care hospital was one of the most needed facilities for the elderly with dementia, followed by short-stay and dar-care center. 5) It was revealed care-giving task was vigorous showing that most care-givers spent 1-5 hours a day for caring, while 13% of respondents spent 11-24 hours a duty. 6) 90% of care-givers took the responsibility of main care-giver because of duty of offsprings or spouses, and wanted to be free from their current circumstances. From the result of this survey researchers would like to suggest the establishment of diverse facilities for professional dementia care to lessen the caring burden for the elderly with dementia: group home, chronic hospital, short-stay, day-care center. Financial support from the government for the housing renovation of the caring families should be considered seriously afterward. It is needed to give the opportunity to select proper paid dementia care facilities according to their income and situation of household.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.459-467
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• 2014

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to suggest the strategies for improvement of home-delivered meal services for the elderly, to identify reasons for recipients to get started with the services and to evaluate the attitude, acceptability and adaptation of recipients to the services from the perspective of life context. Methods: The data was collected through face-to-face in-depth interviews with eighteen low-income elderly recipients of home-delivered meals and analyzed using a qualitative research method. Results: The results were deduced as four themes which comprised of long-term vulnerable socioeconomic contexts resulted in entry to the services, conflicting acceptability to the services, passive adaptation to taking the services, and positive practices to cope with supplement free meals or other services. The service participation was initiated because of a combination of prolonged, vulnerable socioeconomic contexts, including poverty and unexpected life events such as diseases, disability, living alone, aging and unemployment. With regard to taking the services, conflicting acceptability was observed: positive aspects including saving living cost and good quality of meals, and negative aspects including lack of a tailored service and feeling of stigma. Although the recipients needed an individualized service, they did not express their needs and demands for the services and they accepted the unavailability as an accustomed, prolonged vulnerable socioeconomic context. With regard to lack of tailored services, either self-solution such as modification of eating patterns or community-based network and services were used. Conclusions: We suggest that a system to concretely identify recipients' attitude, acceptability and adaptation for home-delivered meal services should be developed in the establishment of a tailored nutrition support system for the low-income elderly.

• Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.160-172
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• 2003

This study was performed to investigate the dietary characteristics and related factors of the elderly female living alone. The subjects were 70 single living elderly female residing in Bucheon city and receiving benefits from the government based social welfare programs. Seventy nine percent of the subjects had self reported monthly income less than 200,000 (won) and forty one percent of the subjects were paying more than 100,000 (won) for food expense. The number of side dishes for a meal was two or three (35.71 ％) or one or two (31.40％)； fifty seven percent of the subjects ate reheated left-over for lunch and 70.0％ for dinner. The proportion of the single living elderly at high nutrition risk ($\geq$ 6 as evaluated with Nutrition Risk Index Score) was 77.1 ％. Cereals and their products contributed most to the macronutrients like energy, protein and carbohydrates and vitamin B. In contrast vegetables and their products contributed most to the fiber, minerals (Ca and Fe) and vitamins (vitamin A, vitamin B and vitamin C). The mean total score of depression was 8.59${\pm}$2.69 (full score: 12) meaning that the extent of depression was serious.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.225-240
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• 1991

The purpose of this study is to find the main factor which influences the housing satisfaction of elderly who lives alone or with spouse and to make it sure that housing satisfaction is an important factor to life satisfaction of elderly. The specific purpose of this study is as follows; 1) How does the locus of control of elderly influence a housing satisfaction\ulcorner 2) How does the housing characteristics of elderly influence on the housing satisfaction and this relationship has any difference between urban and rural area. 3) Which variables influence upon the housing satisfaction and life satisfaction of elderly and how much do they influence \ulcorner The locus of control scale, housing satisfaction scale. life satisfaction scale were composed on the basis of precedent researches. For this study 202 elderly sho live in urban and rural area ere interviewed. To analyze the data, such as F-test, t-test, two-way ANOVA, Multiple regression analysis were used with SPSS program. The results are as follows; 1) The interrelation between locus of control and housing satisfaction is as follows. Namely , if he believes in his deeds and will rater than his fate, he feels more housing satisfaction. 2)the housing satisfaction of the elderly was found to be influenced by location, Namely, the elderly living in the urban area feels more housing satisfaction, especially he lives in apartment and unshared house. On the contrary, the elderly living in the rural area was not affected by housing type and the number of household who live together, The housing satisfaction of the elderly living in the rural area or the urban area equally influenced by the housing tenure, heating system, bathroom facility, flush toilet, and convenient service form the outside. 3) The main factoers which influence the housing satisfaction of the single household elderly are bathroom facility louse of control and income. When we concern about the location in urban area the housing satisfaction of the elderly were mainly influenced by income, but in the rural area, they were influenced by the service facility from the outside. As a Conclusion, the main factor which influenced life satisfaction of the elderly proved to be housing satisfaction inn both rural and urban area.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.40 no.8
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• pp.762-768
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• 2007

This study examined household food insecurity and the associations of food insecurity with socioeconomic conditions, food behaviors, and nutrient intakes among 458 older adults(mean age=$73.2{\pm}4.5$) from 5 clusters of low-income areas in Seoul, Korea. Using an adapted version of the USDA short form household food insecurity scale, 63.4% of the households were food insecure(40.7% for food insecure without hunger and 22.7% for food insecure with hunger). The proportion of household was lower on the items measured more severe level of food insecurity. Food insecurity was linearly and negatively associated with food expenditure, food secured period and the degree of nutrition management skills, health status and depression. Food secure older adults had mere of energy and other nutrients from animal resources(riboflavin and animal protein, fat and calcium), but less of carbohydrates than those from the food insecure households. These results suggest household food insecurity measures used in this study was valid as well as food insecurity was prevalent and an important indicator of nutrition well-being among low income elderly persons.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.128-135
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• 2014

Background: With ageing and growing importance of disease management system, it is necessary to investigate the extent of regional difference in service utilization for chronic diseases among the elderly and to reflect it in designing the system. Methods: A multiple regression analysis and descriptive statistics analyses were employed using patient survey, which covers nationwide health facilities and their users. Results: While the differences in the rate of service utilization/utilization outside living area between urban and rural areas or between income levels are not large, considerable variations are observed within urban or rural areas and within income groups. Conclusion: This results suggest that it is important to subsidize economically disadvantaged segments of the population and residents of less-favored areas to be better-equipped for chronic disease management in order to prevent the development of severe ailments and the need for treatment at higher-level medical institutions. Improvements to the service infrastructure in vulnerable regions are essential.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.61-75
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• 2007

This paper examines the intergenerational time transfers between married women and their co-residing elderly parents, and how they affect married women's labor force participation and work hour. The sample was drawn from the "2004 Time Use Survey" conducted by Korea National Statistical Office and the Heckman's 2-step model was estimated to examine these relationships. We find that women's caregiving time for their elderly parents reduces their likelihood of participating in the labor force. On the contrary, parental time transfers for married women increases the probability of their labor force participation. We find no evidence that the actual hours of paid work is related to the time transfers between married women and their elderly parents. In other words, after married women decide to participate in the labor force, their work hours are not affected by the time spent for parents and time gained from parents to them. Parental income is positively associated with the married women's labor force participation whereas husband's income is negatively related. The married women working in service occupation and earn salaries work longer hours than those employed as laborer and wage workers. Having older parents and owning the second home reduce working hours of married women.