This work was intended to investigate the factors that affect the elderly's satisfaction with life and the buffering (moderating) effects of social networks. With regard to social networks, this work focused on unofficial networks that are highly used by the elderly and are suitable for measuring the elderly's sense of stability and reliability in the networks. To do that, this work drew 3,941 elderly people over 65 years of age from the third material of Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA), and analyzed them. As for the main analysis methods, descriptive statistics, t-test, F-test correlation analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis were used.
Because the elderly's satisfaction with life to be measured in this work is very closely related to the all aspects of life, it is hard to measure it in a single dimension. Therefore, in this work, satisfaction with life was broke down to the following parts: health satisfaction, economy satisfaction, spouse relationship satisfaction, children relationship satisfaction, and the general quality of life (a sense of happiness). The main results of the work revealed that the average depression rating of the entire elderly people was 4.43 out of a possible 10. Given that if people's average depression rating is more than 4 in Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depressed Mood Scale (CESD-10), they have depression, it was found that 57.1% of respondents in the work had depression, but that only 8.6% of respondents recognized their depression. Therefore, it can be inferred that concern of elderly depression is neglected. Regarding the rating of satisfaction with life in a scale of 10, health satisfaction scored 48.78, economy satisfaction 47.94 , spouse relationship satisfaction 65.07, children relationship satisfaction 66.59, and the general quality of life (a sense of happiness) 56.98. When it was compared to the rating of the satisfaction with life by the people in middle age (on the basis of the total population aged 45 years and more), it was found that the elderly's ratings in the whole areas were lower than the middle aged people's (health satisfaction scored 55.0; economy satisfaction 52.01; spouse relationship satisfaction 64.74; children relationship satisfaction 69.5; and their general quality of life 60.41).
With regard to the satisfaction with life depending on the characteristics of respondents, those who felt less depressed, men rather than women, those who graduated from middle school or more (high school, college, and university included) rather than those who graduated from elementary school, those who had religion rather than those who didn't, those who needed less helps in everyday life, those who were subjectively in a good health rather than those who weren't, those who were in a high economic condition rather than those who weren't, those who had a spouse rather than those who didn't, those who participated into more than one social activities rather than whose who didn't, and those who had more friends showed their high satisfaction with life in the entire areas. But, age, the frequency of contacting their children living away from them, and the financial support from their family were not different in spouse relationship satisfaction, and the family support degree was not different in health satisfaction and their spouse relationship satisfaction.
With regard to the factors affecting satisfaction with life, depression, age, the degree of the necessity for helps in everyday life, and the frequency of contacting their children living away from them had a negative impact on satisfaction with life, whereas their subjective health conditions, their subjective consciousness of class, their monthly average allowance, whether they have their spouse, the frequency of seeing friends, the family support degree, whether their family supports them positively affected satisfaction with life. In other words, those who felt less depressed, those who were younger, those who had the low necessity for helps in everyday life, those who had the low frequency of contacting their children living away from them, those who had high subjective health conditions and high consciousness of class, those who had a high monthly average allowance, those who had their spouse, those who had the high frequency of seeing friends, those who had high family support, and those who had the high가amount of financial support by their family members showed their high satisfaction with life. Although education, whether they have religion, economic conditions, whether they live together with their children, and the degree of their participation into social activities were different in satisfaction with life, they were not effect factors.
With respect to the moderating effect of social networks, it stood at .6%, which indicates that spouse, the high frequency of seeing friends, the high frequency of contacting their children living away from them, the more active family support are effective for moderating (controlling) their lowering satisfaction with life, although they feel highly depressed.
Based on the results, this work made the following suggestions in practicing social welfare. First, Senescence is vulnerable to depression, and elderly depression is chronic and does not become conspicuous. Therefore, it is necessary to pay careful attention and actively respond to it. Because of the characteristics of elderly depression, it is hard to recognize the seriousness and appearance of its symptoms, and people tend to think that it is caused by simply aging, and thus it is at high risk of considering it insignificant. Secondly, To improve elderly's satisfaction with life, it is more useful to high-up subjective sense of satisfaction (e.g., subjective economic conditions, and subjective consciousness of class) than objective facts. Thirdly, at senescence, their spouse more affects children relationship satisfaction do. The conventional child-centric living style changes, and the existence of a spouse is more meaningful to elderly couples than to other couples. Fourthly, activation of unofficial social networks is encouraging. The existence of friends at senescence serves as roles of providing useful information in every life, and of offering them good resources about foods and health. Therefore, by interacting with nearby relatives and neighbors, it is possible to alleviate the loss of roles and a sense of isolation at senescence. Fifthly, the elderly's participation needs to be promoted because it is very low. Social participation can cause the elderly to have more social roles, to maintain their health, to spend efficiently their leisure time, and can lead the society to the integration of generations through exchanges, to use elderly force, and to reduce welfare cost. Therefore, the elderly's participation into various activities should be promoted. Sixthly, it is necessary to activate family support. Family support serves the function to overcome one's crisis as a social supporter, and the family affection and helps that the elderly recognize give them force and a positive impact to their health. Seventhly, it is necessary to decrease dependence on the other helps in a daily life of the elderly. Eighthly, elderly needs pocket money to spend by their decision.
Lastly, this researcher proposes each of the following: first, it is necessary to promote the living physical exercise program for general elderly people in order to raise the social awareness of elderly depression and maintain and improve the physical health ; secondly, it is necessary to develop the program of improving the elderly's psychological health; thirdly, it is necessary to activate the elderly couples' culture (e.g., the psychological health program for the elderly couples, physical exercises, travelling); fourthly, local communities need to serve the function of supporting the elderly safety by recovering their roles; fifthly, it is necessary to promote the elderly's participation into a variety of social activities (especially, volunteer work); sixthly, it is necessary to perform the education program about the family support for the elderly in order to improve the recognition of the family support for the elderly; seventhly, it is necessary to improve the residential and local environments by ageing, and eighthly, it is necessary to develop and promote to participate pastime works related leisure program(or social service)

본 연구는 노인의 삶의 만족에 영향을 미치는 요인과 그중 우울이 삶의 만족에 미치는 영향에 있어 사회관계망의 완충(조절)효과를 알아보고자 하였다. 사회관계망은 노인의 이용정도가 높고 관계망을 통한 안정감, 신뢰를 측정하기에 적합한 비공식적 관계망에 초점을 두었다. 연구를 위해 한국 고령화연구패널 3회차 자료의 65세 이상인자 3,941명을 추출하여 분석하였으며 주요 분석 방법은 기술통계, t 검증, F 검증, 상관관계 분석, 위계적 회귀분석법을 사용하였다.
주요 연구 결과로는 우울이 삶의 만족에 미치는 영향에 있어 사회관계망이 .6%의 조절효과를 갖는 것으로 나타났다. 다시말해 배우자가 있는 것이, 친한 사람 만남 횟수가 많을수록, 비동거 자녀접촉빈도가 많을수록, 가족지원이 활발할수록 우울감이 높더라도 삶의 만족감이 낮아지는 것을 조절(완화)하고 있음을 의미한다.
본 연구결과를 바탕으로 사회복지 실천에 있어 다음의 함의를 제시하고자 한다. 첫째, 노년기는 우울에 취약한 시기로 노인의 우울은 만성적이며 잘 드러나지 않으므로 주의 깊은 관심과 적극적인 대응이 필요하다. 둘째, 노인의 삶의 만족도를 높이기 위해서는 객관적 사실보다 주관적 만족감을 높이는 것이 필요하다. 셋째, 노인기에는 자녀보다 배우자의 존재가 삶의 만족도에 더 큰 영향을 미친다. 넷째, 노인의 비공식적 관계망의 활성화가 필요하다. 다섯째, 노인의 사회참여 활동은 미미한 수준에 머물러 있으며 다양한 영역에서의 노인 사회참여 활동이 장려되어야 한다. 여섯째, 가족 지원의 활성화가 필요하다. 일곱째, 노인의 일상생활에 있어서의 타인의 의존성을 낮추는 노력이 필요하다. 여덟째, 스스로의 결정에 따라 지출할 수 있는 용돈이 필요하다.
위의 연구결과를 통해 다음 사항을 제언하고자 한다. 첫째, 노인 우울에 대한 사회인식 개선과 노인의 신체건강의 유지 및 개선을 위한 범시민적 노인 생활체육 프로그램의 활성화가 필요하다. 둘째, 노인을 대상으로 하는 정신건강 증진을 위한 프로그램이 보다 활발하게 전개 되어야 한다. 셋째, 노년기 부부중심의 문화(부부대상 정신건강 프로그램, 운동, 여행 등)를 활성화 해야 한다. 넷째, 지역의 공동체 회복을 통해 지역이 노인의 안전과 근접 지지체계로서 기능토록 한다. 다섯째, 노인의 다양한 사회참여(특히, 자원봉사)를 활성화해야 한다. 여섯째, 노인에 대한 가족지원과 인식개선을 위한 교육을 시도할 수 있다. 일곱째, 노화에 따른 주거 및 지역 차원의 물리적 환경의 개선이 필요하다. 여덟째, 노인 여가 프로그램과 그룹단위의 소일거리 근로를 접목한 ‘여가 프로그램 연계 근로’의 개발 및 참여를 활성화 한다.