This study investigates the effects of a social network on the active aging of the first and second baby boom generations and examines whether positive psychological capital plays a mediating role between social network and active aging in the process...
This study investigates the effects of a social network on the active aging of the first and second baby boom generations and examines whether positive psychological capital plays a mediating role between social network and active aging in the process. For this purpose of this study, a total of 400 effective samples were used for empirical analysis of the first and second baby boomers living in Seoul, Gyeonggi, and six metropolitan cities. Collected data was analyzed in frequency, exploratory factor, reliability, descriptive statistics, correlation, and multiple regression analysis with the SPSS 26.0 statistical program. The PROCESS Macro program was used to verify the mediating effects.
The findings are summarized as follows:
First, the study investigated the effects of a social network on the active aging of the baby boom generations and found that their social network had significant positive (+) effects on their active aging, which means that a higher social network level led to a higher degree of active aging. These findings also indicate that emotional, informative, material, and evaluative support are important factors to increase active aging in new old age; secondly, the study investigated the effects of a social network on the positive psychological capital of the baby boom generations and found that their social network had significant positive (+) effects on their positive psychological capital, which suggests that a higher social network level led to a higher level of positive psychological capital. These findings also show that emotional, informative, material, and evaluative support are important mechanisms to increase positive psychological capital; thirdly, the impacts of positive psychological capital on active aging were also examined. Of its subfactors, self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience had significant positive (+) impacts on active aging, which shows that the higher level of positive psychological capital, including self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience leads to the higher level of active aging among baby boomers; finally, the study analyzed whether positive psychological capital would mediate the effects of a social network on the active aging of the baby boom generations and found that their social network had significant direct positive (+) effects on their active aging and also statistically significant indirect effects on it via the parameter of positive psychological capital. These findings confirm that positive psychological capital had partial mediating effects on the relationship between their social network and active aging, raising a need to increase the level of positive psychological capital as well as the level of a social network in order to heighten the level of active aging.
Based on these findings, the study made policy and practical proposals to promote the active aging of the baby boom generations and discussed its limitations and its suggestions for a follow-up study as follows:
As for policy proposals to facilitate the active aging of the baby boom generations, the study proposes to enact the "Middle-Aged Social Activity Promotion Act." There is a need to establish a foundation to develop active social activities for the new old generation that has a high risk of being socially excluded or isolated due to early retirement in middle age; secondly, the government and society should take more interest in the establishment of social infrastructure related to a social network. It is needed to develop custom jobs for the middle-aged and the elderly, expand their opportunities to participate in social activities, and increase chances and spaces for their participation in cultural activities so that social infrastructure can be established for them; thirdly, there should be various systems and plans to develop a retirement education program and build a lifelong learning system to expand the active aging and social network of the baby boom generations. As for practical proposals, it is needed to make active use of local social welfare centers around the nation to facilitate the active aging of the baby boom generations. There should be active efforts to develop a variety of sociopsychological programs for baby boomers and spread social services to expand their social network; secondly, there should be promotions and guidance for various welfare systems and social support measures to increase the positive psychological capital of the baby boom generations so that they can have positive expectations for their future; thirdly, it is needed to make clinical interventions to enhance the resilience and self-efficacy of the baby boom generations and develop a social welfare & counseling program for them. As for the study's limitations and suggestions for a follow-up study, there is a lack of comparative analysis between the first and second baby boom generations as research on the latter has been insufficient, unlike the active research on the former. In the future, there should be intensive research on the second baby boom generation to build a basis for differentiating elements and supportive measures between the first and second baby boom generations; secondly, as the present study focused its sampling on the Seoul metropolitan region and the six major metropolitan cities, a follow-up study will need to expand its research scope to the entire nation and increase the number of samples.