THE INFLUENCE OF KOREAN ELDERLY’S PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL ACTIVITIES ON THEIR LIFE SATISFACTION

摘要

Korea shows the faster growth in aging than any other country, as it has the fastest growing rate in the population of older people. The problems caused by the aging society are beyond personal level, instead, require the national level approaches.Though continued participation in social activities are believed to be important for successful aging, older people’s participation is poor in Korea. While participating in social activities, the elderly participants can play roles of service providers, in which they may have satisfaction as contributing to their communities. Using their own experiences, knowledge, skills, and abilities for their communities enables them to feel productive, thus, becoming active and vibrant, which will eventually influence their life satisfaction positively.Therefore, this research will study on the effect of older people’s social activities on their life satisfaction and draw implications for Korean social welfare.This study conducted a survey of 438 elderlies at age of 65 and over, statutory age as old people in Korean Welfare of the Aged Act. IBM SPSS Statistics 18.0 was used to analyse the survey results. As a result, participation in social activities is significantly correlated with positive effect on life satisfaction by 52.3%. Based on the results, it will make suggestions for welfare for the aged and future studies.