• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.211-232
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• 2005

Recently, Korean agriculture and rural areas face a huge crisis due to the change in the market environment of agricultural products under WTO and FTA. Thus, rural policy needs to break from the agriculture-centered sectoral perspective and to develop the various potentials in rural areas. The transformation of rural policy is also required from the aspect of increasing regional differentiation in rural areas. In this context, the paper aims to classify the regional types of rural areas and analyse their features in geographical location, population, farming, public finance and so an. The result of analysis shows that rural areas can be classified into 5, 9 or 15 regional types by stages. This implies that there is significant regional differentiation ill rural areas. However, there is regional polarization as much as differentiation in rural areas. In this point, rural policy should catch up regional polarization as well as diversity in rural areas.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.393-408
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• 2009

The drastic growth of transnational marriage since the mid-1990s has been a new challenge to Korea. This article aims to provide a comprehension of new ethnicity by focusing on transnational marriage migration in Korea. A steep increase of foreign brides from China and Southeast countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines can be understood in terms of globalization from below. In this context, Korean trend is similar to Taiwan and Japanese ones. But, there are also some differences between them. The inflow of foreign brides has been gradually weakened since 2005 in Korea, as Taiwan has experienced since 2003. In the ratio of foreign brides among total marriage in Korea, rural area show in average two-fold higher than urban areas. However, most foreign brides have settled down in urban areas in aspect of absolute number. Korean Chinese wives most densely concentrate in urban area, followed by Chinese wives, Nevertheless, there are significant differences among foreign brides' residential areas with their nationalities. In this point, the geography of new ethnicity with foreign brides in Korea is likely to be a multi-dimensional space.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.31-44
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• 2003

In the Local Autonomy Law, we regard the fire-fighting service as inherent service for the local government. However, if we look into the course of the charge of fire-fighting service, after the transfer of this from the police service, or the state, to the local service in 1991, this is now taking a firm hold as service of the local government. what we call the local services includes the business about the welfare of the residents and that of taking in charge of the resident properties, proclaimed in the Constitution. That is to say, the basic purpose of the local autonomy is to make the residents feel the most convenient and safe, and this is the mission of the present-day local autonomy. Looking from this point of view, if we consider that the ultimate purpose of fire-fighting is promoting the welfare of the residents by preventing and putting out fires and, in the time of emergency, carrying out rescue and relief operations, and furthermore, maintaining the safety and order of a society, until present time the benefits of fire-fighting business were mainly available to the residents of the cities. In order to break from these thoughts, according to the result of comparing and analyzing the metropolitan city, surrounding rural areas, middle and small cities and typical rural areas, the rural areas are urgently demanding fire-fighting service, so it is being proved that it is necessary to install the offices in these areas. Therefore, the installation of the fire-fighting offices in the counties that are the basic units of the primary local autonomy and are rural areas should be expanded as part of the welfare administration.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.200-218
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• 2015

The purpose of the present study was to examine daily lives of elderly welfare recipients and their experiences with social welfare services. Researchers collected and analyzed data through individual interviews with 11 elderly welfare recipients. A major theme in the time context was "Daily lives enduring physical and mental sufferings alone and mismatches of social welfare services": 'Starting same tedious days: trading diligent work for basic living assistance', 'Forced ritual of having meals', 'Struggle with depressing night: not attentive welfare services at closing hours', 'Welfare services suspended in holidays', 'Mind and body withered by economic hardship in winter', 'Social support for enduring weary lives'. In the space context, a major themes was "Inadequate welfare services and social interaction in the context of social isolation": 'Unhygienic and unsafe living environment', 'Hiding places: spending tedious days in vacant lots', 'Community welfare centers useful only for healthy elderly', 'Differences and similarities of elderly in urban and rural areas', 'Receiving restricted medical services at hospitals', 'Hard-to-reach public institutions', 'ambivalence about living as welfare recipients'. Based on the findings, the researchers proposed implications for policy and practice to improve elderly welfare recipients' quality of life.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.610-617
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• 2019

The urban-rural complex area in Korea has a distinctive spatial structure where the urban area and rural area coexist. Therefore, in order to cope with the over-depopulation in the rural region of the urban-rural complex area, it is necessary to explore various policies that can prevent the existing residents from leaving, and in fact support them to remain where they currently reside. In this context, this current study analyzed the factors affecting the existing residents' continuous intention to remain by employing the '2017 Chuncheon City Social Survey' as a countermeasure for the over-depopulation of the rural region in the urban-rural complex area. Especially, since a regional identity is determined endogenously, this study used a simultaneous bivariate ordered probit model with giving consideration to the endogenous relationship between a regional identity and a regional residents' intentions. As a result, it was found on analysis that the regional residential intention was higher as the regional identity was stronger. Furthermore, the regional identity was stronger as a householders' age and residence period were longer, and also as the residents were satisfied with their work leisure and life residence balance. It was also found that the residents' intention was higher as the residents' satisfaction with the local medical service and their work was increased. Thus, supporting policy is needed that can provide appropriate quality-of-life services in a timely manner, but only after identifying the demand for these services by the rural residents in the urban-rural complex area.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.289-309
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• 2023

While South Korea's universal healthcare system has garnered attention in public health, the issue of inequality in healthcare service provision among different age groups has incessantly become a significant concern. The focus of this concern is primarily on essential healthcare services, encompassing fundamental aspects of healthcare such as internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatric and adolescent care. This inequality is not limited to differences among age groups (both junior and senior demographics) but also extends to potential disparities in healthcare services based on geographic location, particularly in urban and rural contexts. This paper aims to investigate disparities in primary healthcare service resources in South Korea's evolving economic landscape between 1995 and 2021. We utilize a set of inequality indices with a spatial perspective through geographic cluster analysis. The findings reveal that concerns about inequality have been amplified during various economic events, including the IMF crisis in 1999, the global financial crisis in 2008, and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. These years are identified as significant phases that have contributed to manifesting spatial disparities in primary healthcare provisions, with a particular emphasis on the senior-aged population rather than junior or all population groups. Our findings underscore the pressing need to address the unequal distribution of essential healthcare resources as part of preparedness for potential economic impacts, requiring a comprehensive consideration of the interconnected nature of demographic and spatial dimensions in healthcare services.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.13-23
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• 2009

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the association of social support with health status and health behavior. Methods:　This study was conducted with 79 elderly people in Gunja-ri, Dongsan-myun, Chuncheon. We performed face to face interview which was composed of socio-demographic characteristics, social support, health status and health behavior. The association between social support and result variables was analysed by Chi-square test and logistic regression. We used SAS ver9.1 for statistic analysis. Results: Mean age of the study population was 72.0$\pm$7.0, social support score was 14.3$\pm$4.7 with full marks of 20 and 36.25% of the total population were shown to have depression. When the social support score was changed, depression (p=0.0007) and physical exercise (p=0.0312) showed significant difference. The self-rated health status was significantly related to the relationship with family members (OR=0.25, 95% CI=0.07-0.95) and the quality of sleep was also significantly associated to the relationship with family members (OR=0.21, 95% CI=0.06-0.73). The physical exercise was done significantly less in the group without close friends than in the group with many close friends (OR=0.21, 95% CI=0.05-0.94) and the depression was significantly more in the group without community participation than in the group with community participation (OR=4.79, 95% CI=1.62-14.15). Conclusions: Through this study, we could conclude that the social support factors are associated with health status and health behavior. Therefore, to improve the health status of rural elderly, we need to approach to develop social support.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.77-90
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• 1999

This paper aims to understand the changing characteristics of the Kumi region as a locality in Korea through the regional geography of the world-system approach. To illustrate the changing regional characteristics, we analyzed the economic characteristics or position of the Kumi region within the world-economy and its spatial structure with three divisions of Korean capitalist periods: the Japanese colonial period ($1910{\sim}1945$), the social chaos period ($1945{\sim}1960$), and the economic development period ($1960{\sim}$present). In the Japanese colonial and social chaos periods, as Korean society was incorporated into the peripheral zone within the world-System (world-economy), Kumi also was made into a peripheral agricultural area. As a result, the Kumi region shaped the rural spatial structure without an urban center or regional dominant center. In the development period, influenced by the manufacturing-centered economic policy which boosted Korea as a semi-periphery within world-economy, Kumi also was developed into an industrial region(or semi-periphery) with the establishment of the Kumi electronic and textile industrial complex. This industrialization transformed the rural spatial structure of Kumi into a core (urban center)-periphery (rural area) structure. As we identified above, the regional geography of the world-system approach turned out to be a useful methodology to study a locality or internal region. Therefore we should make efforts to study such regions through the regional geography of the world-system approach.