An Analysis of Health and Economic Status of the Urban Elderly According to Their Lifestyles

도시노인의 라이프스타일에 따른 건강 및 경제실태 분석

The purpose of this study is to classify the elderly over the age of 60 according to their lifestyles and analyze the health and economic status of them that are classified. Data were obtained from 463 elderly living in urban areas. Factor analysis was used for examining dimensions of lifestyles and cluster analysis for classifying the elderly by lifestyles. This study found six different types of lifestyles, Le., the actively self-developing type, the individualist seeing the negative aspects of the world, the sensuous joy oriented type, the obedient to the tradition type, the conservative with discontented attitude toward the world, and the introspective self-fulfilling type. There were significant differences in living status as well as socio-economic characteristics of the elderly among six types of lifestyles. From the results of this study, it is found that the elderly have various lifestyles and, therefore, the understanding the lifestyles of the elderly will enable researchers to capture the problems the elderly face and provide more insight into their living status.