Abstract
This study is designed to examine the present situations and characteristics of social capital of elderlys in Korea, identify how social capital affects their life satisfaction, and thereby provide basic data for the policy-making process ...
Abstract
This study is designed to examine the present situations and characteristics of social capital of elderlys in Korea, identify how social capital affects their life satisfaction, and thereby provide basic data for the policy-making process to raise the quality of life of elderlys.
To this end, we developed a set of research questions and found what is summarized in the following by means of questionnaire survey and statistical analysis of the survey result:
According to <Research question 1> about the current situations of social capital of elderlys in Korea, elderlys in the country were found to have a higher-than-average level of social capital in terms of private and public trust, political participation, norm compliance, and reciprocity awareness, while they had a lower level of social participation, and nonofficial and official network.
<Research question 2> tackled characteristics of social capital of elderlys living in cities by testing the difference of social capital depending on their demographic and socio-economic variables. As one of the findings showing statistically significant difference, male elderlys were found to have a higher level of political participation and norm compliance than their counterparts. As far as age was concerned, younger age group(60-64 of age) showed a higher level of nonofficial and official network than their counterparts who are in mid-older age group(65-74 of age) and older age group(75 of age or older). In addition, the higher degree they have, the higher the level of their social and political participation, and norm compliance was, while elderlys whose spouse were still alive showed a higher level of official network than their counterparts. Furthermore, the healthier they were, the higher the level of their social participation, nonofficial and official network and norm compliance was. Whether or not they live together with their child make a difference in their nonofficial network and norm compliance; elderlys who live together with their child were better at forming unofficial network, while norm compliance was higher among those elderlys who do not live with their child. When it comes to household income, elderlys with more income were found to have a higher level of public trust and social participation as well as more active official network. Finally, as in income, in regard to difference by housing conditions, elderlys who live in their own house showed a higher level of life satisfaction than their counterparts, along with a higher level of nonofficial and official network.
<Research question 3> was designed to identify major variables which affect elderlys’ life satisfaction. We set two assumptions for this purpose with the following findings:
First of all, in order to test Assumption 1 that ‘social capital will make a difference in their life satisfaction,’ we carried out a t-test and ANOVA and found that life satisfaction was higher among those elderlys whose social capital level was higher in all of the social capital variables such as private and public trust, social and political participation, nonofficial and official network, reciprocity, and norm, except political participation than their counterparts. The difference of life satisfaction by official and nonofficial network was bigger than any other social capital variables, while the difference by private and public trust and political participation was very trivial and statistically insignificant.
Then a multiple regression analysis was performed to test Assumption 2 that "social capital will have an effect on life satisfaction of elderlys." As a result, the analysis on casual relationship between social capital and life satisfaction of elderlys revealed that official and nonofficial network and reciprocity among other social capital variables had a positive(+) effect on their life satisfaction. A regression analysis covering demographic and socio-economic variables as a control variable also indicated that along with household income and health condition, social capital variables such as official network and private trust had an effect on life satisfaction. In particular, social capital variables such as official network were found to have a stronger effect on their life satisfaction than demographic and socio-economic variables such as household income and health condition.
From these findings, this study proposed the following suggestions for the policy-making process.
First, considering that the social participation and network level of elderlys among their social capital is badly low, there is a need for a plan to increase their participation, which allows them to gain social organization characteristics enabling cooperation such as network, norm, and trust.
Second, demographic and socio-economic characteristics make a difference in the degree of building up their social capital, so the difference of social capital by demographic and socio-economic characteristics should be taken into consideration in the course of expanding social capital of elderlys.
Third, the study revealed that network had a most consistent and strongest effect on life satisfaction of elderlys, and therefore, to expand network, universal investment in polices of local communities should be strengthened.
Fourth, health and income not only have a direct effect on life satisfaction but also are closely related to forming social capital, so programs for healthier old ages and income improvement should be developed from the social capital perspective.
Fifth, welfare policy for elderlys are needed for the future from the social capital perspective, and to do so, social capital should become an independent area of elderlys welfare policy making process of the central government and local governments.
This study is significant in that it realized social resources as important resources of elderlys and captured characteristics of their social capital, and thereby pursued to examine its socio-economic value and that it explained variables which affect elderlys’ life satisfaction, from a totally different viewpoint of previous studies on attributes in relation to elderlys’ life satisfaction. Besides, this study is different from existing studies which explored the relationship between social capital and life satisfaction of elderlys focusing on some of the elements of social capital such as network and participation, because it defined social capital variables by covering all of the key elements of social capital such as trust, participation, network, norm and reciprocity.
This study reaffirmed empirically the effect of social capital on senior citizens’life satisfaction, and some social capital variables such as official network had a stronger effect on their life satisfaction than demographic and socio-economic variables such as income and health condition. These findings provide a more detailed explanation to help better understand the life of senior citizens and give us more insight into their life, becoming useful data for senior citizens’welfare policy-making process for the future at the same time.
Key words: life satisfaction of Elderly, social capital, trust, participation, network, norm, reciprocity