• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.117-130
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• 2004

Poverty is an important issue, not only in developing countries but also in industrialised societies. In 1999 15% of the European population have been in risk of poverty and the number of people living in poverty in Germany continues to increase. As poverty concerns all aspects of life, it influences health, well-being and the nutrition of the people living on low-income. Although this problem is obvious, only few surveys have been conducted to analyse it and therefore there is only limited information on the nutritional situation and nutrition behaviour of the poor. A qualitative study, which looked closely at the nutrition behaviour of 15 low-income families, was carried out in Giessen, Germany. The results showed that the nutritional situation of poor families differs from that families with a higher income have, the reasons being that their scope for action is restricted by a shortage of money and that there is a lack of skills and knowledge to provide family members with adequate nutrition. Strategies to improve the nutrition situation of poor families should aim at encouraging them to acquire relevant information and appropriate skills to adopt a healthier diet within their financial, social and cultural constraints. Also there have to be socio-political arrangements, which improve existing financial and social provisions as well as preventive educational measures.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.21-31
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• 2015

This study explored determinants of family support that young renter households received to afford their housing costs. Microdata set of the 2014 Korea Housing Survey was used as secondary data for the study. Total 1,752,899 households headed by persons between 20 and 34 years of age and whose rental type was either Jeon-se or monthly rental with deposit in private rental units were selected as study subjects. For the data analysis, a series of discriminant analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS 21.0. Major findings were as follows. (1) Among the subjects, 28.2% were found to receive financial support from parents or other relatives. (2) To see the discriminant analysis results, a linear combination of seven household and housing characteristics (householder's gender, whether or not the householder worked in the previous week, whether or not the householders have a spouse, tenure type, structure type, location and deposit amount) could explain 44.6% of variance in young renter households' receipt of family support with a prediction accuracy of 77.2%. (3) To summarize the final discriminant model, Jeon-se renter households in location other than Incheon or Gyeonggi Province living in a unit in structure other than multifamily structure headed by younger householders that did not worked previous week or without spouse; with a greater deposit had the maximum tendency to receive family support to pay rental costs.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.1197-1209
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• 2007

The advance of digital contents industry shifts the focus of consumptions; from analogue to digital ones. It gives significant impact on individual life as well as overall society and culture, and it leads to the increased consumption of digital contents. Nevertheless, current digital contents industry fails to secure the sufficient consumer protection systems including relevant rules and laws which regulate the distribution, use, and other transaction activities of digital contents and the efforts, on the part of contents providers, to provide information to consumers and to protect them. Digital contents, by its nature, is different from the existing products so that its nature is likely to cause unique consumer problems totally different from the offline transactions and the electrical transactions of existing products. This study, therefore, aims to identify the possible problems which may be incurred by consumers in their use of digital contents, specify the types of consumer damages, and provide the underlying materials to improve the systems related to digital contents and take legally complementary measures for consumer protection. To identify the types of consumer damages, this study analyzed the results from consumer counselling cases, experts opinion survey, and FGI. For consumer damage cases, this study analyzed the consumer complaints received by open consumer counselling sites of the Korea Consumer Agency and Seoul Electronic Commerce Center. For experts opinion survey, it conducted questionnaire survey of the group of experts from digital contents manufacturers or providers, and those who treated consumer damages directly. For FGI analysis, it organized a panel of students and employees who had used digital contents to understand the types of consumer damages. The results of this study can be summed up as follows. Based on the results from consumer counselling cases, experts opinion survey, and FGI analysis, the consumer damages related to digital contents can be classified, in their nature, into economic or financial damages (25 cases), emotional or psychological ones (15 cases), time-related ones (7 cases), physical ones (4 cases), and privacy-related ones (i.e. leakage of personal data)(3 cases). More specifying the types of damages, damages can be subdivided into contract-, charge-, maintenance-, use-, individual-related ones and other ones. Among them, both contract- and charge-related damages appeared only in the economic or financial damages, whereas user-specific individual damages appeared only in physical and emotional or psychological ones. On the other hand, maintenance- and use-related damages and other ones were observed in both categories of economical or financial damages and time-related ones. Use- and privacy-related damages, in particular, caused emotional or psychological damages.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.841-855
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• 2009

The main objective of this study is to examine the situations of group-homes for the elderly and clarify the problems of them. This study investigates the present conditions of welfare facilities and supply conditions. 4 group-homes were surveyed in Jeonju and Kwangju cities. Data was collected through various ways including the survey conducted by facility operators, the measurement of living space, and photo-takings. The major results of this study are as follows: 1) With the introduction of nursing care insurance in 2008, the increase of the demand and supply to group-home will be expected, due to less cost for recuperation. The care of elderly in homelike atmosphere is effective to the elderly suffering from dementia. Therefore, it is proper that the supply of group-homes for dementia will be needed. 2) Group-homes for the elderly are being supplied under the standards of welfare facilities in the present. Separate supply standards, however, are needed because they are not suitable for small scale group-homes. 3) To supply Group-homes for the elderly on a one-unit basis would cause various problems such as economical unreality, personnel distribution and so on. It is necessary to supply more than two units for more efficient management. 4) The management of group-homes for the elderly is financially unstable because the operating funds heavily depend on the users or people who are connected with the facilities through private networks. Therefore, additional support is needed to settle the financial problem. It would be helpful to build the public networking that provides information about the group-home for the elderly for the public. 5) In case of the increase in the supply of the group-home in a residential area, it could be helpful to promote the group-home to the public. 6) The operators state that the main problems of group homes for the elderly lie in financial difficulties and the shortage of professionals and volunteers. The financial, personnel, and material support for personnel and the supervision of management are required for the transparency and effectiveness of the facility management. In addition, the closer network and cooperation system with the community is required. 7) The present living environments for group-homes for the elderly leave much room for improvement, considering the physical condition of the elderly. The more careful selections in the color, shape, material, and equipment of the facilities should be made for the convenience of the elderly users.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.13-29
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• 1995

The purposes of this study are to investigate the characteristics of recognitions and attitudes of new generation family on the family life, and to help the family members of the new generation family to be able to adapt to the future family and society with the right senses and attitudes on the family life. Three-hundred married men and women who were less than 35 years old, and who continued marriage for less than five years were selected. The results of this study were as follow; 1) Types of family composition was mostly nuclear family, and got help from their parents in managing household work. 2) Most new generation family was more likely to share equal roles and rights in household affairs, decision making and ownership of real properties. 3) Most new generation family considered the personality and the sense of value as the most important conditions which their spouse must have. And they were affirmative to wives' employment. 4) Most new generation family wanted 2 children. And preferred showed that they did not care much about son preference. 5) Most new generation family showed strong sense of responsibility for taking care of their old parents. However, they showed independency of financial planning for later years. 6) In many ways of life, their recognitions and attitudes were progressive but their were conservative in practical life as the older generations did.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 1998

The major purpose of this study was to investigate chief's perception of institution management according to the types of the institution for the child care and education. The subjects for the analysis were 220 chiefs who actually run the institutions for the child care and education, including kindergarten, private nursery, group day care home, and private educational institute. The data were analyzed by the five different methods, which were frequency, percentage, chi-square test, one-way ANOVA and Scheffe test, using the 7.5 version of SPSSWIN program. The major research results were that (1) the chiefs of the institutions for the child care and education have suffered many difficulties in the administrative and financial respects ; (2) the main area in need of the government's assistance is either that of personnel expenses for teachers or that of expenditures necessary for improving their status ; and (3) on the whole chief's perception of institution management differed by the types of the institution for the child care and education.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.96 no.5
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• pp.602-608
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• 2007

Forest plantations become important strategy not merely for the financial aspect, but for carbon sequestration and ecosystem stability. Forest plantations increase the density of the forest biomass, which reduce the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Biomass density is also a useful variable for comparing structural and functional attributes of forest ecosystems across a wide range of environmental conditions. In this study, carbon sequestration of teak (Tectona grandis Linn. f.) in the individual tree and plantation levels estimation was carried out Site-specific allometric equation for the estimation of teak tree biomass was developed based on the direct measurement of fifteen (15) harvested trees in the Oak-twin Township of the Bago Yoma Region, Myanmar. A regression equation of the diameter at breast height (DBH) and the aboveground biomass (carbon content) was constructed to estimate the carbon storage level of plantations, which averaged 79 ton/ha. The average carbon accumulation in the soil (up to 30 cm in depth) was estimated 38.89 ton/ha, The highest mean annual increment (MAI) of total carbon was found in the 6-yr-old teak plantation (12.10 ton/ha/yr) whereas the lowest MAI was in the 26-yr-old teak plantation (4.31 ton/ha/yr).

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.12 no.2 s.31
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• pp.87-96
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to increase the utility in terms of the elderly's welfare. The data introduced in this paper were collected by the constructed interview method, and 192 aged interviewees were selected from 4 rural areas: Namhaegun, Uiryeong-gun Imsil-gun and Sunchang-gun. From the descriptive analysis of the data, the results derived are as follows: 1) The financial supports are needed to remodel rural village community facilities as senior centers. 2) It is expected that the facility be a center for the aged people's living in a village, and that have multiple functions of general care service network health care, meal support and making friendship spaces for them. 3) Share housing function is also added to the facility in emergency conditions.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.95-105
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• 2005

This study examined the factors affecting college students' money management behaviors according to credit card usage. The data were collected from 481 college students in Busan and Gyeongnam areas by a self-administered questionnaire. Frequencies, Cronbach's Alpha, factor analyses, t-test, Pearson's correlation analysis, and regression analyses were conducted by SPSS WINDOWS. The results from this study were as follows. First, there were significant differences between credit card usage group and non-usage group in the means for future preparation, stingy attitude, and planned expenditure. However, there was no significant difference in the mean of money management behaviors. Second, for the credit card usage group, the significant variables affecting money management behaviors included sex, grade, experience of consumer education, father's occupation, monthly household income, future preparation, stingy attitude, methods of emotional change, planned expenditure, and negative recognition. On the other hand, for the non-usage group, grade, experience of consumer education, father's occupation, way of success, future preparation, stingy attitude, planned expenditure, and conditional permission were significant. These results imply that financial management education including values about money and consumption patterns should be conducted.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.505-522
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• 2007

This study examined the effects of eco-system factors on adolescents' suicidal ideation and whether self-esteem and depression mediate in the process to provide theoretical basis for prevention and treatment for problems of adolescents who have suicidal ideation. 2,088 high school students were asked to complete self-administering questionnaires on eco-system factors and adolescents' suicidal ideation. Data were analyzed with frequencies, t-test, ANOVA with Scheffe ad-hoc test, correlation analysis using SPSS 12.0 program and AMOS 5.0 program. Study results were ; First, adolescents' suicidal ideation showed significant differences according to their gender, socio-economic financial status, family structure, and the type of school they attended. Second, self-esteem and depression were proved to have significant mediating effect. Child abuse victimization, subjective school achievement and influence of media coverage of celebrity suicide were most important variables which influenced adolescents' suicidal ideation. These results reinforce importance of understanding adolescents' suicidal ideation with eco-system perspective. Moreover, prevention programs for adolescents' suicide require differentiated strategies and tactics according to the target group characteristics.