• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.133-186
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• 2012

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of social networks in finding jobs and estimates the value of job search network using the Korean Laber and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) dataset and utilizing the Difference-in-Difference Propensity Score Matching (PSM) methodology (Heckman et al., 1997). While the wide use of social networks in the Korean labor market is often perceived as 'nepotism,' this study confirms that social networks, by serving as an effective information transmitter between job search and recruitment, make a significant contribution to improving the adequacy of job matching in the domestic labor market. In order to verify the effectiveness of using social networks for getting jobs, this study looks into the cases of labor turnover using social networks and also not using it. In the aspect of individual satisfaction improvement relating to workplace and job duties, both cases of turnover turn out to experience an increased satisfaction by 2~3 points (on a 100-score scale). Meanwhile, as for the educational and technical adequacy improvement, no positive effects are found in the case of turnover without social networks, whereas the educational and technical adequacy improvement turns out to increase by 2.13 and 2.52 points, respectively, in the case of turnover using social networks. The effect of income increase through turnover using social networks registered 40,074 Korean won per month (as of 2010), which can be considered as the result from the improved educational and technical adequacy. Of all things being considered, the value of job search network per wage worker in the Korean society is estimated to be 18.72 million won in terms of life-cycle wage improvement, and 758.2 scores in terms of the improvement of working life satisfaction. Provided that the cash value of satisfaction score 1 is equivalent to 'n' times 10,000 won, the aggregate value of job search network is estimated to be 18.72+7.582n million won, which means the total amount of costs that a wage worker in the Korean society willingly pays to maintain and manage job networks for lifetime.

• Therapeutic Science for Rehabilitation
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.61-77
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• 2023

Objective : This study analyzed the correlation between cognitive function and oral health-related quality of life (OHQoL). Methods : Demographic and clinical characteristics were extracted and utilized for subjects aged 45 years or older who participated in the 8th Korean Longitudinal Study on Aging in 2020. The dependent variable was the Geriatric Oral Health Assessment Index, and the independent variable was the level of cognitive function classified by the Mini-Mental State Examination scores. The analysis method used inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW). Then, the association between cognitive function and OHQoL was analyzed by multiple regression analysis. Results : Among the participants, 4,367 (71.40%) had normal cognition, 1,155 (18.89%) had moderate cognitive impairment, and 594 (9.71%) had severe cognitive impairment. As a result of analysis by applying IPTW, there was a negative correlation between the cognitive function group and OHQoL (normal vs. moderate: β = -2.534, p < .0001; normal vs. severe: β = -2.452, p < .0001). Conclusion : After propensity score matching, mild cognitive impairment showed a more negative association than severe cognitive impairment. Therefore, patients with cognitive impairment require oral health management education to improve OHQoL regardless of the level of cognitive impairment.

• Journal of Korean Clinical Nursing Research
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.170-177
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• 2018

Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine effectiveness of 12-hour shifts for nurses compared to 8-hour shifts for the variables: Work-Life Balance, fatigue and work errors. Methods: In 2014, an opportunity to choose a 12-hour shift duty was given to a group of 8-hour shift nurses. In 2016, two years after this change, this study was done to compare the two groups. Data were collected using questionnaires. Data were sampled by a matching method with propensity score matching (PSM). The participants were 128 nurses: 64 nurses on 12-hour shifts and 64 nurses on 8-hour shifts. The comparison was analyzed using $x^2$ test, t-test. Results: The nurses on 12-hour shifts showed higher scores for Work-Life Balance (3.37) than the groups on 8-hour shifts (2.99)(p=.018) whereas were no statistical differences between the groups for fatigue (p=.132) or work errors (p=.703). Conclusion: The Work-Life Balance scores for nurses who chose the 12-hour shift shows an enhancement without an increase in fatigue or work errors.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.23
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• pp.10531-10537
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• 2015

Background: To examine whether offspring improve or reduce quality of life (QOL) among cancer patients and survivors. Materials and Methods: We used data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA) from 2008 to 2011. There were 490 research subjects in our study: 245 cancer patients and survivors and 245 controls matched using propensity scores. Results: For cancer patients and survivors with no offspring, the QOL estimate was -2.831 lower (SE: 5.508, p-value: 0.623) than that of those with two offspring, while for those with five or more offspring, the QOL estimate was 7.336 higher (SE: 2.840, p-value: 0.036). For non-cancer patients and survivors with one child, the QOL estimate was -11.258 lower (SE: 2.430, p-value: 0.002) than that of those with two offspring, while for those with five or more offspring, the QOL estimate was -4.881 lower (SE: 2.484, p-value: 0.090). Conclusions: This article provides evidence for a beneficial effect of offspring upon QOL in cancer patients and survivors, indicating that offspring are important for them.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.71-93
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• 1988

The purpose of this study is to investigate the realities of the husband's violence, to develop a scale to identify women who are victims of wife abuse and to provide evidence of the scale's validity. The Instrument entitled the Wife Abuse Inventory (WAI) and conflict Tactics Scale(CTS), are administered to 511 women who lives in Taegu area. The main results are as follows; 1) The CTS analysis shows the 42.5% of the sampled house wives are suffered minor violence and 9/0% are suffered violence form husband. 2) The WAI is factor analyzed to examine factor components within the scale. An examination of the rotated solutions suggested that WAI is composed 10 factors. These factor is labeled men's conception of supremency and aggression propensity, communication, economic difficulties and frustration, social activities, jealousy, children rearing, intimacy, family relationships in laws , affection, difference of culture. 3) an analysis of variance show the group mean score of the violence group and the mean score of the non-violence group on the WAI to be significantly different(P<.001). A discriminant analysis produce a significant discriminant function (P<.001). Using WAI scores as the discriminating variable, 81,15% of the violence and non-violence subjects are classified into their appropriate groups. This finding indicates that the WAI is a reliable device for screening violence and nonviolence group.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.33-42
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• 2020

The paper investigates the mechanism through which corporate credit ratings affect dividend payments by decomposing the mean difference of dividends into a part that is explained by the determinants of dividends and a residual part that is contributed by the pure credit group effect, in the framework of the traditional dividend model of Fama and French (2001). Historically, better credit rated firms have shown consistently higher propensity to pay dividends especially during the economic crisis period. According to the counter-factual decomposition technique of Jann (2008), better rated firms are more responsive to the firm characteristics that have positive impact on dividends and poor rated firms are more responsive to the negative dividend predictors. As a result, good (bad) credit ratings make corporate managers become more bold (timid) in their dividend payments and they tend to pay more (less) dividends than what their firm characteristics prescribe. The degree of information asymmetry increases for the poor group firms during crisis periods and they attempt to reserve more cash in preparation for future investments. The decomposition results suggest that the credit group effect can potentially exceed the effect of firm characteristics because firms of different credit ratings can respond to the very same firm characteristics in a different manner.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.247-253
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• 2018

Background: Early extubation after cardiovascular surgery has some clinical advantages, including reduced hospitalization costs. Herein, we review the results of ultra-fast-track (UFT) extubation, which refers to extubation performed on the operating table just after the operation, or within 1-2 hours after surgery, in patients with congenital cardiac disease. Methods: We performed UFT extubation in patients (n=72) with a relatively simple congenital cardiac defect or who underwent a simple operation starting in September 2016. To evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of our recently introduced UFT extubation strategy, we retrospectively reviewed 195 patients who underwent similar operations for similar diseases from September 2015 to September 2017, including the 1-year periods immediately before and after the introduction of the UFT extubation protocol. Propensity scores were used to assess the effects of UFT extubation on length of stay (LOS) in the intensive care unit (ICU), hospital LOS, and medical costs. Results: After propensity-score matching using logistic regression analysis, 47 patients were matched in each group. The mean ICU LOS ($16.3{\pm}28.6$ [UFT] vs. $28.0{\pm}16.8$ [non-UFT] hours, p=0.018) was significantly shorter in the UFT group. The total medical costs ($182.6{\pm}3.5$ [UFT] vs. $187.1{\pm}55.6$ [non-UFT] ${\times}100,000$ Korean won [KRW], p=0.639) and hospital stay expenses ($48.3{\pm}13.6$ [UFT] vs. $54.8{\pm}29.0$ [non-UFT] ${\times}100,000KRW$, p=0.164) did not significantly differ between the groups. Conclusion: UFT extubation decreased the ICU LOS and mechanical ventilation time, but was not associated with postoperative hospital LOS or medical expenses in patients with simple congenital cardiac disease.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.87-93
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• 2024

Background: In recent years, studies have shown conflicting results regarding the benefits of dietary supplements in reducing healthcare expenditures. This study aimed to address this inconsistency by examining the association between supplement consumption and health expenditures using nationally representative data from the Korea Health Panel Survey (2019-2020). Methods: A 1:1 matched case-control dataset was established using propensity score matching technique based on supplement consumption. Then, total annual healthcare expenditures were compared between the two groups. In addition, a multivariate regression analysis (Proc Surveyreg) was performed to determine the association between the supplement consumption and medical costs. Results: The supplement user group spent about 1.72 million Korean won, while the non-user group spent about 1.43 million Korean won on medical services (p=0.0186). The results of multivariate regression showed that the costs were approximately 26.15% higher in the user group than in the non-user group (p=0.0004). Conclusion: Contrary to the previous studies that have shown the benefits of supplement use in reducing healthcare costs, this study showed that those who consistently consumed supplements spent more on medical services. This can be interpreted in the same context as previous studies suggesting that dietary supplement intake is a healthy behavior for managing one's health. However, we caution against drawing firm conclusions due to data limitations. Further analysis using patient-level epidemiologic data is needed.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.59-65
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• 2013

Excessive sodium intake leading to hypertension, stroke, and stomach cancer is mainly caused by excess use of salt in cooking. This study was performed to estimate the salt content in school meals and to compare differences in perceptions related to sodium intake between students and staffs working for school meal service. We collected 382 dishes for food from 24 schools (9 elementary, 7 middle, 8 high schools) in Gyeonggi-do and salt content was calculated from salinity and weight of individual food. The average salt content from elementary, middle, and high school meals were 2.44 g, 3.96 g, and 5.87 g, respectively. The amount of salt provided from the school lunch alone was over 80% of the recommended daily salt intake by WHO. Noodles, stews, sauces, and soups were major sources of salt intake at dish group level, while the most salty dishes were sauces, kimchies, and stir-fried foods. Dietary knowledge and attitude related to sodium intake and consumption frequency of the salty dishes were surveyed with questionnaire in 798 students and 256 staffs working for school meal service. Compared with the staffs, the students perceived school meals salty and the proportions of students who thought school meals were salty increased with going up from elementary to high schools (P < 0.001). Among the students, middle and high school students showed significant propensity for the preference to one-dish meal, processed foods, eating much broth and dipping sauce or seasoning compared with the elementary students, although they had higher nutrition knowledge scores. These results proposed that monitoring salt content of school meals and consideration on the contents and education methods in school are needed to lower sodium intake.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.75-79
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• 2012

Objective : The study examined the difference in the incidence of symptomatic cerebral vasospasm with magnesium supplementation in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) in a Korean population. Methods : This retrospective analysis was performed in 157 patients diagnosed with aneurysmal SAH from January 2007 to December 2011 at a single center. Seventy patients (44.6%) received a combination treatment of nimodipine with magnesium and 87 patients (55.4%) received only nimodipine. A matched case-control study using propensity scores was conducted and 41 subjects were selected from each group. A dosage of 64 mmol/day of magnesium was administrated. Results : The infusion of magnesium did not reduce the incidence of symptomatic cerebral vasospasm (n=7, 17.1%, p=0.29) compared with simple nimodipine injection (n=11, 26.8%). The ratios of good clinical outcome (modified Rankin scale 0-2) at 6 months were similar, being 78% in the combination treatment group and 80.5% in the nimodipine only group (p=0.79). The proportions of delayed cerebral infarction was not significantly lower in patients with combination treatment (n=2, 4.9% vs. n=3, 7.3%; p=0.64). There was no difference in the serum magnesium concentrations between the patients with symptomatic vasospasm and without vasospasm who had magnesium supplementation. No major complications associated with intravenous magnesium infusion were observed. Conclusion : Magnesium supplementation (64 mmol/day) may not be beneficial for the reduction of the incidence of symptomatic cerebral vasospasm in patients with aneurysmal SAH.