서울市民의 삶의 質의 實態 와 市政府의 公共政策의 發展方向에 관한 硏究 : The Case of Metropolitan Seoul = A Study of the Quality of Life and Its Implications for Public Policy Development

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

One of the major national policy issues facing Korea in the 1980's is to address the social imbalance created in the process of the rapid economic growth during the past 20 years.
Social development policy has now become as important as economic development.
The quality of life of the citizens as a social indicator can serve as a meaningful input in the process of formulating this social development policy in the same way as GNP and income distribution pattern are essential in planning economic development policy.
This study attempts to ascertain the quality of life of citizens in Seoul and seeks to suggest ways of applying these data to the decision-making of public policies by the Seoul metropolitan government.
This study has two primary objectives and their nature also determines the research methods emloyed.
The first objective is to investigate the quality of life of Seoul citizens.
Survey research techniques are used to accomplish this objective.
The second objective is to contribute to the decision-making of public policy of the Seoul metropolitan government.
Policy science methods are applied to this end.
Specifically, policy planning methods are chosen instead of policy analysis methods.
The quality of life is defined here as the degree of citizen satisfaction in the full range of life domains including economic, social, and environment.
The concept and specific components of the quality of life lack consensus and still remain controversial.
After a careful review of the major studies on the subject here and abroad, it is concluded that a subjective social indicator is more meaningful than objective indicator.
The subjective social indicators are a measurement of individual perceptions of their objective life conditions such as degree of happiness as perceived by individuals.
Out of the ten million population living in the Seoul metropolitan area, a sample of ten thousand individuals is selected based on a stratified random sampling technique.
First, a survey was made to determine the degree of individual happiness on this sample regarding overall happiness and twelve specific areas of life, (1) family: (2) housing: (3) personal health: (4) educational services: (5) job or business: (6) savings or personal finance: (7) neighbors and relatives: (8) leisure: (9) population growth in the Seoul metropolitan area: (10) environment, transportation, and other public amenities: (11) fear of war: and (12) human rights, taxes, and relations with government.
Second, and eleven ladder self-anchoring scale was used to measure the subjective quality of life.
This method was used by Cantril and Roll in their study, the Hope and Fears of American People.
The respondents to the survey evaluate their own life conditions and choose where they stand on the 11 steps scale.
This sample survey also attempts to determine the trend of the quality of life by asking the respondents to recall their feelings five years prior to the survey year(1985) and to project their expectations five years in the future from the survey year.
Third, the data derived from this survey are analyzed to determine the relationships between the overall happiness and each of the twelve areas through the computation of gamma and correlation coefficients.
Fourth, also measured are the relationships between the personal attributes of the respondents including age, education, occupation, income, religion, sex, number of children, and residential location and the overall happiness and each of the twelve life domains.
Fifth, the respondents were also asked to rate the "importance" of each of the life domains, thus, establishing the self-rated "satisfaction" and "importance" of each life domain.
The relationships between these two indicators may be significant in considering policy priorities.
The findings from the survey data and their analysis may be summarized as follows:
(1) Citizens of Seoul tend to expect that they will be better off five years from now whether they feel they are better off now than five years earlier or not:
(2) In four of the 12 life domains, the respondents feel that their current life conditions are more satisfactory than five years ago: they are family, housing, educational services, and savings and personal finance:
(3) In the other eight areas of life domains, the respondents feel that their current life conditions have been deteriorated over the past five years:
(4) The overall happiness rating tends to show a continuous upward trend.
Particularly, the respondents are optimistic about the future of family, housing, education, and personal finance:
(5) In nine of the twelve areas, the respondents' satisfaction rating is above the midpoint of the 11 points scale.
They are family, housing, health, education, job, personal finance, leisure, neighbors and relatives, and war.
In the other three, population growth, public amenities, and government relations, the satisfaction rating is below the midpoint:
(6) The self-rated ranking of the importance of the life domains is in the order of health, family, and education, but the degree of satisfaction is in the order of family, health, and neighbors and relatives.
The areas where importance exceeds satisfaction are health, education, job, population increase, war, and government relations, whereas the areas in which satisfaction exceeds importance are family, housing, personal savings, and neighbors and relatives.
It seems necessary to focus policy attentions on those areas where the degree of satisfaction is below the self-rated level of importance.
(7) The low income, low education, young, laborer respondents tend to register a low degree of satisfaction and to feel that life conditions are getting worse in several areas including health, education, job, personal savings, and war.
The high and low income groups are generally less satisfied with their life conditions and less secure about the possible threat of war than the middle income group.
(8) The younger respondents are optimistic about the future in the areas of neighbors and relatives and population increase whereas the older respondents are optimistic about the future of health, education, public amenities, and government relations:
(9) The higher income respondents tend to be optimistic about the future of housing, health, education, job, personal savings, leisure, and war, whereas the lower income respondents tend to be optimistic about their future of family, neighbors and relatives, public amenities, government relations: and,
(10) In general, the people of Seoul feel that their current life conditions are better than their past life conditions and they expect that their life will become even better in the future.
The policy implications of these findings may be highlighted as follows: First, The findings offer detailed information about the areas of citized concerns as to the degree of their satisfaction and the level of importance of each area as perceived by them.
This information is believed useful in evaluating the effectiveness of current policies as well as designing alternative poilices to improve the areas of citized dissatisfaction.
Second, The future expectations are particularly instructive in long-range policy planning in the process of transition of Korean society from a developing nation into an advanced industrial nation.
In conclusion, an attempt has been made in this study to develop a social science foundation through which “social information”can be collected and analyzed and applied to policy development and policy evaluation.
Needless to say, more research of this nature is needed to improve the ability to reflect the citizen perception of life reality on the formulation, choice, and evaluation of public policy.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. 序 論
• 1. 硏究의 目的
• 2. 硏究의 範圍
• 3. 硏究의 方法
• Ⅱ. 公共政策決定의 特性과 市民의 삶의 質의 理論的 背景
• 1. 公共政策硏究의 類型
• 2. 삶의 質의 一般的 定義와 몇가지 問題點
• 3. 삶의 質의 測定에 있어서 客觀的인 指標와 主觀的인 指標
• 4. 삶의 質과 公共政策決定과의 關係
• Ⅲ. 서울市民의 삶의 質의 實態調査
• 1. 調査의 槪要
• 2. 應答者의 社會的 背景
• 3. 領域別 滿足度에 대한 分析
• 4. 삶의 質의 各 領域間의 相關關係 分析
• 5. 綜合評價
• Ⅳ. 政策代案의 基本方向과 政策示唆
• 1. 調査結果의 分析과 政策示唆
• 2. 政策遂行의 方向
• Ⅴ. 結 論