2009 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Changing Life Style of Elderly People in South Korea

Research Project

Project/Area Number	18510215
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Area studies
Research Institution	Osaka Kyoiku University
Principal Investigator	KOBAYASHI Kazumi Osaka Kyoiku University, 教育学部, 准教授 (90273804)
Project Period (FY)	2006 – 2009
Keywords	高齢化 / 韓国 / ライフスタイル / 高齢者
Research Abstract	I studied the recent situation of changing lifestyles of elderly people in South Korean society. The field research was held in Seongnam City Geonggi-do (Seoul Metropolitan area), Daejeon Metropolitan City and the farm village area of Chungcheongnam-do. I found the general trends as follows ; 1) increase of the lifestyle of elderly parents joining their grown children's families in later years 2) difficulty of forming the three-generation family in the countryside 3) varieties of living alternatives by economical condition 4) tendency to share the responsibility of supporting one's parents among all children, etc. Compared with the Japanese lifestyles, following characteristics became clear such as 1) frequent contacts with children living separately and with neighbors 2) high working rate especially in village areas and economical support from children, etc.