• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.17-27
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• 2020

Baby boomers are the population group born between 1955 and 1974 in South Korea. They are the generation to grow up in the rural areas and it has been reported in the previous literature that a large part of baby boomers now hopes to return their hometowns after their retirement. The purpose of this study is to investigate factors that obstruct the baby boomers' residential relocation to their hometowns by in-depth interviews with three different types of baby boomers: returners, soon-to-be returner, and wanna-be returner. Findings of this study show that the reasons behind the hesitation to the migration may be grouped into four categories: concerns about insufficient jobs, lack of medical services, concerns about social relation network and poor cultural environment in their hometown.