• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.643-662
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• 2011

As the concentration of people in urban area become severe and abnormal meteorological disasters such as regional torrential rains, heavy snows, sweltering heat, and so on have been increasing, the interest on the urban meteorological information service, which considers the specific characteristics of metropolitan areas in weather forecasting, are also increasing. The urban meteorological information service is one of up-to-date technologies which observes urban weather in a more microscale perspective compared to the present weather forecasting system and provides useful meteorological information which is specialized for metropolises in real time. Therefore, urban meteorological information service is expected to contribute to the increase in quality of life for citizens and to the development of industry in urban areas. In this study, we estimate the economic benefit of the urban meteorological information service using contingent valuation method with survey data of the citizens who are expected to be the direct customers of this new information service. As a result, we conclude that the household is willing to pay 5,963 Korean won per year on average, during a period of five years, for receiving this meteorological information service, and this willingness-to-pay is varied by the socio-economic characteristics of head of the household.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.64 no.4
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• pp.163-188
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• 2012

This study examines recent trends in income inequality among the elderly in Korea. Aggregate income inequality trends are explained by examining evidence from inequality index decomposition by population subgroup and by income source. Data come from Korean Labor and Income Panel Study(KLIPS). The results are as follows. First, elderly income inequality increased from 1999 to 2002, and then decreased until 2008. Second, household composition changes appear to have disequalizing influence. The proportion of elderly people who are economically dependent on non-elderly family member or living with adult children has declined. Equalizing influence of private transfers also decreased between 2002 and 2008. These results indicate that the redistributive role of family has weakened over time. Third, the improvement of education level and changing occupational structure among the elderly household head contributed to increase in elderly income inequality. Fourth, earning's factor share has declined steadily, and the diminishing role of earnings provides equalizing influence on elderly income inequality from 2002 to 2008. Fifth, the impact of recent expansion of social insurance has changed over time. Inequality contribution of social insurance income increased from 1999 to 2002, and then decreased from 2002 to 2008.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.277-311
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• 2010

The powerful association between poverty and mental health has been recognized for many decades in the Western Countries. Despite growing poverty studies, there has been little attention to the association between poverty and mental health in Korea. In this article we examine the effects of the mental health on the poverty status transition. In this study we draw on nationally representative data from the The Korean Welfare Panel Study, to estimate the effects of depression and self-respects on the poverty status transition. Major findings are as follows. First, we find that there are mental health disparities between poor and non-poor classes. The mental health conditions of the poor are worse than the non-poor. Second, we find the strong correlations between the mental health and poverty status transition. Whether poor family exits poverty or not depends on the household head's mental health. Third, poverty experiences are different depending on the mental health conditions. To the mental ill-health family, the probabilities of poverty-exit are much lower and poverty duration is more long. Fourth, we find that family poverty status transitions are very significantly related with household head's mental health from the logistic model analysis. These findings suggest that there is a strong relationship between poor mental health and the experience of poverty in Korea. They also suggest that intervention programs to enhance the mental health of the poor are needed in order to reduce the poverty problem in Korea.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.107-116
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• 2005

Objectives : We analyzed the changes from 1996 to 2002 in distributive equity of the contribution burden in the Korean National Health Insurance. Methods : The study subjects were a total of 8,923 employee households and a total of 7,296 self-employed households over the period from 1996 to 2002. Those were the households meeting the two criteria as completing each annual survey and having no change in the job of head of the household during that period from the raw data of the Household Income and Expenditure Survey annually conducted by the Korean National Statistical Office. The unit of analysis was a household, and this was the standard for assessing the contribution that is now applied on a monthly basis. Deciles Distribution Ratio, Contribution Concentration Curve and Contribution Concentration Index were estimated as the index of inequality. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to compare the annual ability-to-pay elasticity of the contribution to the reference year of 1996 for three groups (all households, the employee households, and the self-employed households). Results : For the index of inequality, the distributive equity of contribution was improved in all three groups. In particular, the employee group experienced a substantial improvement. Using multiple regression analysis, the ability-to-pay elasticity of the contribution in the employee group significantly increased ($\beta$=0.232, p<0.0001) in the year 2002 as compared to the reference year of 1996. The elasticity in the self-employed group also significantly increased ($\beta$=0.186, p<0.05), although its change was smaller than that in the employee group. Conclusions : The employee group had a greater improvement for the distributive equity of the contribution burden than the self-employed group. Within the observation period, there were two important integration reforms: one was the integration of 227 self-employed societies in 1998 and the other was the integration of 139 employee societies in 2000. We expected that the equity of the contribution burden would be improved for the self-employed group since the integration reform of 1998. However, it was not improved for the self-employed group until the year 2000. This result suggests that capturing exactly the beneficiaries' ability-to-pay such as income is the precedent for distributive equity of the contribution burden, although a more sophisticated imposition standard of contribution is needed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.98 no.5
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• pp.548-557
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• 2009

For centuries, forests have been a key component of rural livelihood. They are important both socially and economically in Nepal. Firewood and fodder are the basic forest products that are extracted daily or weekly basis in most of the rural areas in Nepal. In this study, a field survey of 100 households was conducted to examine the degree of forest dependency and forest resource availability, households' livelihood strategy and their relationship with forest dependency in Chitwan, Nepal. A household' response indexes were constructed, Gini coefficient, Head Count Poverty Index (HCI) and Poverty Gap Index (PGI) were calculated and one way ANOVA test was also performed for data analysis. Data revealed that 82/81% of all households were constantly used forest for firewood and fodder collection respectively while 42% of households were used forest or forest fringe for grazing. The Forest Product Availability Indexes (FPAI) showed a sharp decline of forest resources from 0.781 to 0.308 for a 20-yr time horizon while timber wood was noticeably lowered than the other products. Yet, about 33% of households were below the poverty threshold line with 0.0945 PGI. Income distribution among the household showed a lower Gini coefficient 0.25 than 0.37 of landholdings size. However, mean income was significantly varies with F-statistics=246.348 at P=0.05 between income groups (rich, medium and poor). The extraction of firewood, fodder and other forest products were significantly different between the income group with F-statistics=16.480, 19.930, 29.956 at P=0.05 respectively. Similarly, landholdings size and education were also significantly different between the income groups with F-statistics=4.333, 5.981 at P=0.05 respectively. These findings suggested that income status of households was the major indicator of forest dependency while poor and medium groups were highly dependent on the forests for firewood, fodder and other products. Forest dependency still remains high and the availability of forest products that can be extracted from the remaining forestlands is decreasing. The high dependency of households on forest coupled with other socioeconomic attributes like education, poverty, small landholders and so on were possibly caused the forest degradation in Chitwan.Therefore, policy must be directed towards the poor livelihood supporting agenda that may enhance the financial conditions of rural households while it could reduce the degree of forest dependency inspired with other income generating activities in due course.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.13-21
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• 2009

The traveler's travel pattern has significantly changed due to the social and economic changes. The travel time among the traveler's pattern is the limited resource. The travelers are trying to maximize the utility of travel with the least travel cost. So, the travelers travel with their own travel time budget in mind, which they can pay or choose to pay for the optimal maximization of the utility of the individuals. This research is to group and extract the specific factors which affect the travel time budget by utilizing the CART analysis method, which enables the analysis of traveler's characteristics and their interrelationship based on the data collected from "2002 Household Travel Practice Research" and then try to derive a model for estimating the traveler’s travel time budget. The result of CART analysis shows that the factors which affect the travel time budget include the traveler's age, size of house, type of house, type of employment, job and relation to the head of household. Considering the affecting factors derived, I developed an estimation model. From that model, we found that the age, size of house and type of house were positively (+) related to the travel time budget while the homeworking people who have less travel frequency as a type of employment were negatively (-) related to it. In particular, from the point of type of job, the housewives, children not yet old enough to attend schools and people who are working in the agricultural, or marine product industries were found to have the negative (-) value while the people who have the administrative, office, management jobs were found to have the positive (+) value.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.171-194
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• 2003

The present study investigates the effects of lopsided regional policy and social prejudice on homeownership disparities by household's place of birth of household head in Seoul. The present study utilizes individual household-level census data (2% sample) to evaluate households' residential well-being denoted by homeownership status during the period of 1980-2000. Decomposition techniques based on tenure choice models were used to provide evidences of the home-ownership disparities caused by regional policy and prejudice. We found that households from Gangwon and Honam provinces represent a disproportionately small percentage of homeownership compared with those originated from other provinces. In the statistical analysis, the present study found that having controlled for the factors traditionally thought to influence households' choice of housing tenure, as well as other housing market characteristics in Seoul, place of birth has played a primary role in determining whether or not households become a homeowner. Most strikingly, while most of the disparity in homeownership ratios between households from Youngnam and households from Gangwon in the housing market is due to the endowment differences in human capitals they bring to the market, those between households from Youngnam and households from Honam is largely due to residual differences explained mainly by social discrimination and prejudice against people from Honam. The present study summarized that place of birth has played a primary role in determining whether or not households become a homeowner in Korea. The present study concluded with some policy issues relevant to this study and suggested some future studies.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 1988

This study examines the sampling bias that may have resulted from the large number of missing observations. Despite well-designed and reliable sampling procedures, the observed sample values in DSFH(Demographic Survey on Changes in Family and Household Structure, Japan) included many missing observations. The head administerd survey method of DSFH resulted in a large number of missing observations regarding characteristics of elderly non-head parents and their children. In addition, the response probability of a particular item in DSFH significantly differs by characteristics of elderly parents and their children. Furthermore, missing observations of many items occurred simultaneously. This complex pattern of missing observations critically limits the ability to produce an unbiased analysis. First, the large number of missing observations is likely to cause a misleading estimate of the standard error. Even worse, the possible dependency of missing observations on their latent values is likely to produce biased estimates of covariates. Two models are employed to solve the possible inference biases. First, EM algorithm is used to infer the missing values based on the knowledge of the association between the observed values and other covariates. Second, a selection model was employed given the suspicion that the probability of missing observations of proximity depends on its unobserved outcome.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.7
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• pp.497-508
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• 2020

Using primary data collected through semi-structured interviews conducted during February 2019, this article examines citizen's awareness and knowledge of Khon Kaen Smart City (KKSC) among the residents of five contiguous municipalities within Khon Kaen Province, Thailand. A self-weighted sample of 420 respondents was selected through a two-stage, 30-cluster sampling process. In the first stage, a sample of 30 artificial clusters of 100 households each was selected. In the second, 14 households were randomly selected from each of these clusters. The head of household or, if unavailable, a resident aged 18 or over was interviewed. The study applies the "citizens as democratic participants" dimension of Simonofski et al.'s (2019) evaluative framework. Results found that, because of ineffective citizen engagement, the levels of awareness and knowledge about KKSC were low. However, multiple logistic regression found that, despite the low levels of awareness and knowledge, education and income could establish an independent effect on awareness of KKSC. Those who completed post-secondary school were more aware of KKSC than those who finished only secondary or primary education. Similarly, the analysis of data clearly indicated that educational attainment, solely and independently from all other socio-economic and demographic variables, could explain the positive effect of education on knowledge about KKSC.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.614-624
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• 2015

Traditionally, fathers have been a bread earner and responsible for external matters as the head of household. However, the interest of today's fathers in their children has changed from that of the traditional fathers due to the increased employment of female, decreased birth rate and the trend of shared role in parenting. The purpose of this study was to identify the perception type of fathers of preschool children regarding obesity and the characteristics of the type by applying Q-methodology, and to create the basic data for the development of education programs for fathers or policy-making to prevent child obesity. Data were collected by applying 38 Q statements to 24 fathers of preschool children. Collected data were analyzed with the PC QUANL program. Results indicate that fathers' perception of obesity was divided into three types: 'management of physical activity and diet,' 'generous acknowledgment of reality' and 'compromised emphasis on homemade meal.' The 'compromised emphasis on homemade meal' type is those who consider homemade food important, although they sometimes suggest conditions to make their children cooperative for food. It was found that the subject of the study uniformly recognized that processed foods, fast foods or chocolates are harmful to health. The type of fathers' perception of obesity in preschool children was discussed, focusing on the perception type identified in this study.