• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.11 no.11
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• pp.296-312
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• 2011

Korea has been suffering from financial hardship with low birth rate and rapid growing of advanced aged people because low economic growth and low interest rate have continued after IMF foreign-exchange crisis. Under these circumstances, it is necessary for the middle-aged people to have well-prepared retirement plan in the sense of physical, psychological, social and economical preparedness. The study intends to find out how the occupation and activity characteristics affect the physical, psychological, social and economical preparation for their remaining old age. For the purpose, questionnaires were collected from 344 middle-aged people working in private companies, public offices and small-business owners in metropolitan and Chungcheong province. The findings are as follows: First, they were physically well-prepared, as they thought their leisure activity was more important, their occupational role was more stable and they were old and healthy. Second, Women had notion about their occupation if they kept a good relationship with their colleagues. And they were psychologically prepared well as they valued their leisure activities. Third, if they perceived their occupations as stable and had more social and leisure activities, they were socially well-prepared. Fourth, Although the level of economical preparation depends on their wealth, the occupation and activity characteristics had no effect on the economical preparation. These findings imply that the retirement preparation as a recent social issue has been influenced by the nature of occupation and activity and suggest that the definite policy and program will be required for the retirement preparation of the middle-aged people from various aspects.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.105-128
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• 1998

There are about 5,300,000 overseas Koreans in the world. This is about 11.8 percent of the total population of the Korean peninsular. They reside in more than one hundred nations. This exodus occurred due to forced emigration, escape from oppressive regimes, and economic opportunity. Most of them are living in the four regions, that is, China, Japan, America, and Central Asia. The purpose of this paper is to examine the pattern of Korean migration to overseas and to compare the life style of overseas Koreans. The data are taken from a sample survey, which was conducted in China, Japan, America, and Central Asia. A total of 300 respondents were interviewed in each country. The result shows that there are some differences in the lives of overseas Koreans. For example, the Koreans in Central Asia may have suffered the greatest hardship, the similar case was found in the Koreans in China. By contrast, the issue of ethnic conflict becomes the most serious problem in the Koreans in Japan. This study also shows many aspects of common Korean heritage, that is, hard work, diligence, and high level of education. In addition, the study indicates that overseas Koreans are trying to retain Korean traditional values and relationships in their families.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.200-218
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• 2015

The purpose of the present study was to examine daily lives of elderly welfare recipients and their experiences with social welfare services. Researchers collected and analyzed data through individual interviews with 11 elderly welfare recipients. A major theme in the time context was "Daily lives enduring physical and mental sufferings alone and mismatches of social welfare services": 'Starting same tedious days: trading diligent work for basic living assistance', 'Forced ritual of having meals', 'Struggle with depressing night: not attentive welfare services at closing hours', 'Welfare services suspended in holidays', 'Mind and body withered by economic hardship in winter', 'Social support for enduring weary lives'. In the space context, a major themes was "Inadequate welfare services and social interaction in the context of social isolation": 'Unhygienic and unsafe living environment', 'Hiding places: spending tedious days in vacant lots', 'Community welfare centers useful only for healthy elderly', 'Differences and similarities of elderly in urban and rural areas', 'Receiving restricted medical services at hospitals', 'Hard-to-reach public institutions', 'ambivalence about living as welfare recipients'. Based on the findings, the researchers proposed implications for policy and practice to improve elderly welfare recipients' quality of life.

• Korean Journal of Family Social Work
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• no.57
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• pp.125-157
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to analyse effects of public support for single-parent family for adolescent single-parent who experienced social exclusion and social network. This study utilized a part of National Youth Policy Institute's 'Research on the Actual Condition of the Adolescent Pregnancy, Birth and Rearing Children'. Participants of the study were 262 adolescent single-parents at the age of 24 and below. In order to understand the effect, this study verified the moderating effect of public support for single-parent family in the context of social exclusion and social network on parental attitude and behavior(parenting efficacy, parenting stress, negative parenting behavior). Results of this study are as follows; First, Nearly half of adolescent single-parent has economic hardship in original family and most they lived with preschool children on unemployed state that the average monthly income of them was about 600,000 won. It means that their financial independence difficult. Second, family support was only significant factor for parenting efficacy and positive relationship with family and acquaintances was major influence factor for causing positive parental behavior of adolescent single-parent. As a result, social network was verified more important factor than social exclusion on parental attitude and behavior. Lastly, public support for single-parent family was confirmed as social mitigation mechanism that has the moderating effect of social exclusion and social network on parental attitude and behavior.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.774-785
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• 2018

This study was conducted to evaluate the factors affecting the quality of life before and after clinical practice for nursing students. The data were collected from 256 nursing students in the third and fourth years at H college and G University through a questionnaire from February 19 to June 29, 2018. The collected data were compiled using the SPSS/WIN 18.0 statistical program with Paired t-test, ANOVA, Spearman rho Correlation, Kendall Correlation, and Multiple Linear Regression. The factors that significantly explained the quality of life of nursing students before and after clinical practice were the reason for application (t=5.268, p<.001), school record (t=4.771, p<.001), depression (t=-4.600, p<.001), monthly income (t=3.383, p=.001), and satisfaction in nursing department (t=3.344, p=.001). The coefficient of determination for these factors, R2, showed an explanation force of 68.5%. These results also inferred that the quality of life of nursing college students is high, with high satisfaction in nursing departments and regular school record and low economic hardship and depression. Therefore, programs should be developed that can improve the quality of life of nursing students before and after clinical practice by continued improvement in the controllable factors of school record and satisfaction in nursing departments and by reducing depression, since the reason for application and the monthly income of nursing students cannot be controlled.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.4B
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• pp.345-354
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• 2006

Drought brings on long term damage in contrast to flood, on economic loss in the region, and on ecologic and environmental disruptions. Drought is one of major natural disasters and gives a painful hardship to human beings. So we have tried to quantify the droughts for reducing drought damage and developed the drought indices for drought monitoring and management. The Palmer's drought severity index (PDSI) is widely used for the drought monitoring but it has the disadvanges and limitations in that the PDSI is estimated by considering just climate conditions as pointed out by many researchers. Thus this study uses the SWAT model which can consider soil conditions like soil type and land use in addition to climate conditions. We estimate soil water (SW) and soil moisture index (SMI) by SWAT which is a long term runoff simulation model. We apply the SWAT model to Soyang dam watershed for SMI estimation and compare SMI with PDSI for drought analysis. Say, we calibrate and validate the SWAT model by daily inflows of Soyang dam site and we estimate long term daily soil water. The estimated soil water is used for the computation of SMI based on the soil moisture deficit and we compare SMI with PDSI. As the results, we obtained the determination coefficient of 0.651 which means the SWAT model is applicable for drought monitoring and we can monitor drought in more high resolution by using GIS. So, we suggest that SMI based on the soil moisture deficit can be used for the drought monitoring and management.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.235-260
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• 2012

This study was aimed at looking into and understanding child-rearing experience of mothers from multicultural families based on the grounded theory, one of the qualitative research methods. For this, twelve mothers from multicultural families were selected and data were collected through in-depth interviews with them and then analyzed through the open coding, axial coding and selective coding. The analysis suggested that main phenomena mothers from multicultural families experienced are the conflict of child-rearing and educational crisis, and the confused identity of parenting. These main phenomena had much to do with contextual factors such as economic hardship, lower level of the Korean language, cultural differences, prejudices and ignorance. The severeness of conflict and crisis of child-rearing and the intensity of identity confusion for parenting depended on arbitral conditions such as family bonds, positive expectation for the future of their children, and the help of supportive systems. Mothers were dealing with difficulties of child-rearing through action and interaction of resignation and denial, introspection and the intention to overcome difficulties, and the capacity building. As a result, mothers from multicultural families acknowledged that there is a limit to their position and roles they can play and tried to change in order to resolve problems related to their children, positioning themselves for more active lives in Korean society. Through discussion based on the findings of the study, this study can help better understand child-rearing experience of mothers from multicultural families and suggest several directions for future researches on multicultural families.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.1472-1484
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• 2019

This study aimed to verify the effects of nutritional status, K-ADL, K-IADL, and social network on the life satisfaction of the elderly in home. Total 213 research subjects participated in this study, and their average age was 71.38±5.59. As the methods of analysis, using the SPSS 21.0, this study examined the differences between variables in accordance with the general characteristics, and then verified the correlations between independent variables of nutritional status, K-ADL, K-IADL, social network(family networks, friends networks), and life satisfaction. In order to verify the factors having effects on the life satisfaction of the elderly in home, the stepwise multiple regression analysis was conducted. In the results of this study, in the general characteristics, the life satisfaction showed statistically significant differences in accordance with education(F=5.280, p=.002), economic condition(F=22.407, p<.001), monthly income(F=3.181, p=.015), and subjective health status(F=14.933, p<.001). In the results of verifying the correlation between independent variables, the life satisfaction showed positive correlations with family networks(r=268, p<.001) and friends networks(r=.286, p<.001) while the nutritional status(r=-.222, p=.001), K-IADL(r=-.235, p=.001), and interdependent social support(r=-.283, p<.001) showed negative correlations. The predictive factors on the life satisfaction of the elderly in home included the economic condition(β=.358, p<.001), subjective health status(β=.245, p<.001), interdependent social support(β=-.158, p=.009), and K-IADL(β=-.153, p=.012), and the explanatory power was 30.1%. The regression model was statistically significant(F=23.778, p<.001). Based on such results of this study, it would be necessary to develop programs that could maintain and improve the health of the elderly, and also provide financial support to the elderly suffering from economic hardship, in order to improve the life satisfaction of the elderly in home. Moreover, there should be the concrete measures for vitalizing the community-connected activities for interdependent social support.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.101-130
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• 2012

This study examines mortality change in North Korea and its association with state production and welfare systems. Two main subjects are analyzed. The first theme is to examine the reliability of mortality related data released by North Korea government authorities. Examining inner consistencies among mortality related statistics and comparing with mortality trends in other socialist societies, the study finds that mortality rate was under estimated. Under-estimation of mortality by North Korean authorities is regarded to result not only from political purpose which aims to propagate the regime's superiority but also from enumeration errors of vital statistics based on the residence registration. The second theme is to estimate the change in mortality of North Korean people since the establishment of DPRK, correcting errors of mortality data. Mortality of North Korean people is estimated to have improved largely by the early 1970s, to have been sluggish hereafter, and finally to have increased during the economic hardship period between 1993 and 2008. While large people died during the food crisis in the late 1990s, however the population loss caused by mortality increase was not so great as the proposition of the huge starvation was expected. It is partly because population turbulence occurred not just by mortality increase, rather it has progressed in the joint effects of fertility decline and exodus of North Korean people for food. It is also due to North Korean people's voluntary activities of informal economy. It is also worth noting the high mortality rate of North Korean men. The high mortality of North Korean men is likely due to men's mobilization for long time in army and labor with high risk of accident and their life styles.