고령층의 경제적 지위에 관한 연구 : 소득측정의 임상문제를 중심으로 in the clinical view of income assessments = A Study on the Economic Status of the Elderly

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

A study on the economic status of the elderly: in the clinical view of assessments. The economic status of the elderly has been a topic of great interest to researchers and policy makers for many years throughout the world.
In recent years, two streams of controversy has been left noticeable. The conventional perception formerly was that the economic status of the elderly was low. Another perception is that the elderly are well off.
Both views are too simplistic. Actually the problem of assessment is too much burdensome to any researcher since the examination of detailed age groups implies a more complicated business. We should stress uncertainty about the relative status of the aged and emphasize what we have to care about elderly's problems.
We are apt to incline to use broad elderly-non elderly comparisons to conclude for the critical policy issues. But such broad comparisons are not the most meaningful way to measure the status of the elderly. Sometimes, means rather than medians, often used in the comparisons, means are anyway affected by extreme values: medians generally are a much better measure of the status of a typical unit in the age group.
This study discussed several fundamental points about assessing the economic status of the elderly.
Great diversity in economic status within the elderly group has been recognized. Sub groups of the aged differ substantially in economic status. And looking at the entire age range in given year median cash income is highest for middle-aged is below the medians for the middle age groups.
If we combine detailed age groups into summary aged and non aged groups, the level of the aged-non aged ratio of cash incomes depends greatly on the technical measurement just like adjusting for the needs for the different groups.
When non cash income is considered in addition to cash income, the elderly's income tends to improve relative to that of the non elderly. In that case there also exists serious measurement problems.
And when wealth is considered in addition to cash income, the economic status of the elderly improves relative to that of the non elderly.
Meanwhile, to improve the economic status of the elderly, society has to establish the mechanism of the proper income maintenance. The period for the elderly's social participation should be extended. The socialization of honoring norms of the elderly shall be recommendable in this era of turmoil.
The medicare policy for the elderly has to be prompted as well as the private participation in the side of insurance and money deposit system of bands of encouraged. Above all, on the dimension of national policy, we should tackle to the endless war of welfare reforms.
we now sense that there are much unknown facts about the elderly. The relation between life events like widowhood and economic status also requires more exploration as does the measuring of income.