• Korean Journal of Gerontological Social Welfare
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• v.73 no.1
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• pp.385-416
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• 2018

This study aims to identify factors affecting the young and middle-aged people's stigma against older adults. By identifying the factors, solutions to lower stigma against older adults can be found. For this study, data from '2017 Age Integration Survey' sponsored by National Research Foundation of Korea and collected on March 2017 were used. Subjects of this study are 854 survey participants residing in 15 districts of South Korea. They are 480 young people aged from 18 to 44 and 374 middle-aged people aged from 45 to 64. T-test, Chow test and Multiple Regression Analysis by SPSS were conducted for the data. These are the results. Both the young and middle-aged people have a similarly high level of stigma against older adults. However, there are significant differences in the variables affecting the level of stigma against older adults between the two age groups. Two common variables affecting stigma against older adults in young and middle-aged people are the recognition of how older adults are depicted in media and age flexibility. The better they recognize discrimination against older adults in media and what an age flexible society is like, the stronger stigma against older adults they tend to have. On the other hand, sex, average monthly income and the opinion on how people treat older adults in their community are significant variables only for the young people. And living district is a significant variable only for the middle-aged people. The significance of this study is that it conceptualized 'stigma' as a cause for discrimination against older adults and focused on the stigmatizing subject, who are the young and middle-aged people, not the stigmatized subject, who are older adults in order to find solutions for lowering stigma against older adults.