• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.133-144
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of the social networks and its relationship with the psychological well-being of middle-aged men. The participants were 314 men who were married living in Pusan, aged between 40 and 59, having occupation and children. Data were collected by questionnaire which consists of Social Networks Scale and Psychological Well-being Scale. The major results of the study were summarized as follows; First, the range of the social contact with men's own kin was wider than women's. In the contact frequency of midge-aged men, primary networks were shown more frequent contact than the secondary networks. In the characteristics of interactive function of social networks, kinship of the middle- aged men, their partners and friendship networks were the most important among the six networks, which agrees the fact that kin are still the primary source of social support. Second, the level of psychological well-being was lower than family-related satisfaction and work-related satisfaction. In the work-related satisfaction, the level of job satisfaction was lower than the other sub-categories. Psychological well-being of middle-aged men were affected by Social economic status as well.