• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.65-85
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• 2022

This study aims to contribute to social work practice in understanding marriage and divorce as transitions and in helping women make meaningful decisions on whether to stay or leave the marriage by examining the factors that impact women's divorce decision making over time. This is a longitudinal study that used survival analysis by Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families' panel data. Finally, cox regression analysis was used to evaluate the impact of each factor on divorce decision making, and accordingly, all regression models were appropriate for analysis.

• Nutritional Sciences
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.42-49
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• 2005

Many of the non-communicable diseases, which are now the major causes of death and disability worldwide, can be linked to our lifestyles, and thus to what eat The life-style related risk factors are - to a great extent - preventable. Public health nutrition (PHN) policies are means through which govemments can have an enornous impact on the reduction of nutrition-related non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cancer and cardiovascular disease, by creating and supporting environments which enable healthier food choices and which are conducive to healthy nutrition behavior. More and more countries are developing nutrition policies. Nutrition policies are tools through which governments can intervene and control nutrition-related concerns throughout all levels of society. The need for more concerted action in the Republic of Korea is demonstrated, by showing the lack of priority for nutrition issues. Four recommendations for action are made; the first recommendation places emphasis on the need to implement a structure at the political level, through which nutrition concerns can be addressed, such as a nutrition unit within the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The second recommendation stresses the need for a strong nutrition advocacy strategy, to raise the awareness of the gains that can be achieved by promoting healthy nutrition. The third recommendation calls for more vigorous regulations and stricter enforcement of food and nutrition advertisement, and the fourth recommendation emphasizes the need for a settings-bsed approach to nutrition interventions. Acknowledging the developments that have already occurred in Korea, public health nutrition has yet to become a priority on the agenda of policy makers in Korea.

• Informatization Policy
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.80-99
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• 2010

A substantial body of theoretical and case study literature exists about the relationship between competition and universal service in developing countries. On the one hand, many scholars have argued that state-owned monopolies in developing countries are not able to mobilize the capital needed for network expansion: the resulting unmet demand for services becomes a motivator for liberalization. On the other hand, the introduction of competition jeopardizes the internal and external subsidies through which the state-owned monopoly kept subscription rates low: the heightened concern about loss of subscribership incentivizes the creation of explicit universal service statutes and funding mechanisms concurrently with or soon after competition is introduced. This paper shows that universal service in Korea had a unique evolutionary path, which did not conform to either of these expectations. From this finding, it reaches the conclusion that the outcomes predicted by theory and observed in the case study literature are not intrinsic to the monopoly condition per se, but derive from the strategic choices made by telecommunications managers, regulators and lawmakers in developing countries.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.47-55
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• 2014

Background: Korea is considered to have an integrative health system where both western medicine and Korean (traditional) medicine are officially recognized and provided. Although Korean medicine has been covered by National Health Insurance over 20 years, equity in the utilization of Korean medical care has rarely been examined. Methods: We examined medical care utilization and expenditure of outpatient Korean medicine using panel fixed effects model to remove selection bias. Then we compared it with pooled ordinary least square (OLS) model. This study used Korea Health Panel data, which provides accurate information on out-of-pocket health care payment, including non-covered medical services. Results: Principal findings indicate that the frequency of the utilization of Korean medicine is related with unobservable individual choices different from western medicine, so the panel fixed effect model is appropriate. But pooled OLS model is better fitted for the expenditure of Korean medicine, after controlling for western medical care expenditure. After adjusting for the selection bias, socioeconomic status (income, education) was significantly associated with the expenditure of Korean medicine, but not with the frequency of the utilization of Korean medicine. Conclusion: This study shows that expenditure of Korean medicine utilization is inequitable across socioeconomic groups, which implies that health insurance coverage of Korean medicine is not sufficient.

• Informatization Policy
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.3-18
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• 2016

Radical paradigm shift is being expected due to the coming of the so-called intelligent society. In the intelligent society, things or machines are able to use intelligence for the first time in history and this will bring about fundamental changes at every corner of human society. This article analyzes views of the world in order to figure out basic directions of this paradigm shift. A dualistic view of world mediated by technology is suggested for a new world view of the intelligent society, based on comparison of a traditional dualistic view of world between human-nature and a tripartite view of world between human-machine-nature. This article summarizes paradigms of the intelligent society into four ; externalization of intelligence, productivity explosion, platform society, and self-organizing society. These new paradigms will provide lots of benefits such as intelligence augmentation, production capacity increase, and self-organizing effect. But at the same time, it will increase risks of system failure because of loss of human control on technologies. In conclusion, it is argued that human choices and efforts will decide the future of the intelligent society becuase the paradigm shift is value neutral in essence.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.321-333
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• 2017

This study was a qualitative study using Colaizzi's phenomenological study method to understand the experience of reconstructing life through hemodialysis in chronic renal failure patients and to clarify the meaning of their vivid experience. The participants were eight chronic renal failure patients receiving hemodialysis. Data were collected through individual in - depth interviews with participants. The five categories that were found in the study were 'The beginning of unexpected difficulties', 'Burden of survival brought on by hemodialysis', 'The driving force of recovery', 'Choices and concentration of today in order', ' Every day life which must be woven sincerely'. The results of this study will help clinicians better understand the physical and mental suffering experienced by patients with chronic renal failure receiving hemodialysis and how they are constantly trying to adapt to a changed lifestyle. Also it might provide basic data for the development of efficient nursing intervention for the health management of hemodialysis patients.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.173-190
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• 1998

This study reviewed both consumer movement and consumer policy of government in Japan. Their evolution since the Second World War will be reviewed and compared multiple periods, after the Second World war till the late 1960s, the period of the 1970s, the period after 1980s. In addition, firms' consumer satisfaction policies were briefly reviewed in order to fully understand consumer protection activities in japan. This study found four major characteristics of consumer protection activities led by both voluntary consumer organizations and government. First, consumer protection policy of government in Japan after the late 1960s was more active than that of consumer movement by consumer organizations. Second, major concerns for consumer protection were variant over time. The major goal in the first stage of period(during the 1960s) was to protect consumer safety from defective and dangerous goods and services, whereas the goal after the late 1970s was extended to cover various areas concerning the quality of life. Those areas refer to the quality of services, the way of sales and marketing, pollution of environment, and the quality of consuming life. Third, this study found that computer networks, aiming at collecting and analyzing the very useful to improve the consuming life of Japanese by providing sufficient consumer information to encourge rational choices of consumers. Forth, a close cooperation between the central and local administrations was crucial for the successful outcome In Japan This paper gives us useful guideline regarding how to improve consumer movement and govemments' policies for protecting consumer in Korea. In addition, other lessons on successful consumer satisfaction policies of Japanese firms may enable Korean firms to shape effective consumer policies of enhancing their competitiveness.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.189-207
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• 2010

We applied IT ecosystem analysis to Smart Grid system in this paper and thereby compared various arguments about Smart Grid technologies against the reality of the power generation and distribution in South Korea with a special attention to the power distribution side. Our work attempts to propose policy implications in the government-level based on a firm-level analysis using the framework of the competitive strategy and advantage. The Smart Grid initiative is expected to enhance the efficiency in the power generation and distribution. In addition, the Smart Grid initiative aims at capturing the opportunities in the electric power business such as parts, components, supplies, and system products in the global arena. Prerequisites of smart distribution system include building infrastructure based on smart distribution parts, information systems, communication technologies, and developing various application programs and interfaces that would interact with the consumers. Consumers are expected to play an integral role by changing their consumption patterns in response to dynamic pricing and quality choices enabled by the smart distribution technologies. In order to induce the consumers to participate actively in the program, firms and policy makers should consider providing consumers economic incentives and proper education for better understanding of new technologies. Our work helps policy makers and firm better understand the nature of technology and stakeholders for the successful implementation of smart distribution technologies.

• Korean System Dynamics Review
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.25-40
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• 2001

This paper describes the forecast of power plant construction in a competitive korean electricity market. In Korea, KEPCO (Korea Electric Power Corporation, fully controlled by government) was responsible for from the production of the electricity to the sale of electricity to customer. However, the generation part is separated from KEPCO and six generation companies were established for whole sale competition from April 1st, 2001. The generation companies consist of five fossil power companies and one nuclear power company in Korea at present time. Fossil power companies are scheduled to be sold to private companies including foreign investors. Nuclear power company is owned and controlled by government. The competition in generation market will start from 2003. ISO (Independence System Operator will purchase the electricity from the power exchange market. The market price is determined by the SMP(System Marginal Price) which is decided by the balance between demand and supply of electricity in power exchange market. Under this uncertain circumstance, the energy policy planners such as government are interested to the construction of the power plant in the future. These interests are accelerated due to the recent shortage of electricity supply in California. In the competitive market, investors are no longer interested in the investment for the capital intensive, long lead time generating technologies such as nuclear and coal plants. Large unclear and coal plants were no longer the top choices. Instead, investors in the competitive market are interested in smaller, more efficient, cheaper, cleaner technologies such as CCGT(Combined Cycle Gas Turbine). Electricity is treated as commodity in the competitive market. The investors behavior in the commodity market shows that the new investment decision is made when the market price exceeds the sum of capital cost and variable cost of the new facility and the existing facility utilization depends on the marginal cost of the facility. This investors behavior can be applied to the new investments for the power plant. Under these postulations, there is the potential for power plant construction to appear in waves causing alternating periods of over and under supply of electricity like commodity production or real estate production. A computer model was developed to sturdy the possibility that construction will appear in waves of boom and bust in Korean electricity market. This model was constructed using System Dynamics method pioneered by Forrester(MIT, 1961) and explained in recent text by Sternman (Business Dynamics, MIT, 2000) and the recent work by Andrew Ford(Energy Policy, 1999). This model was designed based on the Energy Policy results(Ford, 1999) with parameters for loads and resources in Korea. This Korea Market Model was developed and tested in a small scale project to demonstrate the usefulness of the System Dynamics approach. Korea electricity market is isolated and not allowed to import electricity from outsides. In this model, the base load such as unclear and large coal power plant are assumed to be user specified investment and only CCGT is selected for new investment by investors in the market. This model may be used to learn if government investment in new unclear plants could compensate for the unstable actions of private developers. This model can be used to test the policy focused on the role of unclear investments over time. This model also can be used to test whether the future power plant construction can meet the government targets for the mix of generating resources and to test whether to maintain stable price in the spot market.

• Strategy21
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• s.34
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• pp.128-148
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• 2014

In south Korea, the so-called 'conservative-liberal' rivalry over the assessment of the government's North Korean policies is seen to be impeding the road to right policy choices. For example, the liberals accused former President Lee Myung-bak's hardline policy of provoking Pyongyang and leading to a deterioration of inter-Korean relations, while the conservatives appreciated it for helping nurture mutually beneficial inter-Korean relations in the longer term by compelling North Korea to observe international norms. However, such debate over the vices and virtues of Seoul's North Korea policies is hardly meaningful as the measuring sticks used by the liberals and the conservatives are entirely different matters. The two major goals South Korea must pursue with its North Korean policies should be 'peaceful management of division' and 'change in North Korea'. The former is related to maintaining stability within South Korea and promoting co-prosperity with North Korea. For this, the nation needs to engage, encompass and assist the Pyongyang regime. The second goal is also necessary since South Korea, as a divided nation, must seek a unified Korea under the system of democracy and market economies by bringing change in North Korea. For this, South Korea needs powerful leverages with which it can persuade and coerce the North. This means that the nation is destined to simultaneously chase the above-mentioned two goals, while also both recognizing and negating the legitimacy of the North Korean regime. This situation necessitates Seoul to apply flexibility in reconciling with Pyongyang while applying firm principles to sever the vicious circle involving the North's military provocations. The May 25 Measures, which banned trade and economic cooperation with the North except those related to humanitarian assistance, were taken as sanctions against Pyongyang for sinking the South Korean corvette Chonan in March 2010. The Measures were taken by the Seoul government immediately after a multinational investigation team discovered evidence confirming that the South Korean naval ship had been torpedoed by a midget North Korean submarine. Naturally, the May 24 Measures have since then become a major stumbling block in inter-Korean exchange, prompting opposition politicians and concerned entrepreneurs to demand Seoul to unilaterally lift the Measures. Given the significant damages the Measures have inflicted on inter-Korean economic relations, removing them remains as homework for both Koreas. However, the Measures pertains to the 'principles on national security' the Seoul government must adhere to under all circumstances. This is why North Korea's apology and promises not to repeat similar provocations must come first. For now, South Korea has no alternative but to let North Korea solve the problems it has created. South Korea's role is to help the North do so.