강남대학교 사회복지학부
College of Social Welfare, Kangnam University, Yongin, Korea
This study aims to explore the factors that affect the elderly's quality of life. Especially, it attempted to explore how the socioeconomic characteristics of the elderly and the social capital they had affect their quality of life. The subjects of this study were 229 elderly who lived in the Seoul metropolitan areas. The levels of quality of life was measured by the 8-item questionnaire and the social capital was measured by norm, trust, partnership in community, information sharing, and participation in community. Also, personal, familial, and human capital traits were introduced as socioeconomic natures of the respondents. This study conducted descriptive statistics analyses and multiple regression analyses to explore the determinants of quality of life for the elderly. Although the quality of life for the elderly were varied significantly according to their diverse socioeconomic and social capital natures, only level of education, subjective health condition, partnership in community, and information sharing were statistically significant predictors to the quality of life for the elderly in the total model. The result of this study shows us that elderly who were highly educated, who felt healthier, and who experienced more partnership and information sharing in their communities enjoyed higher quality of life than their counterparts. Therefore, more policy and program considerations should be took for elderly to strengthen their social capital as well as human capital in order to enhance their levels of quality of life. (Korean J Str Res 2009;17:131∼141)