• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.67 no.4
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• pp.279-299
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• 2015

This study examines the impact of Long-Term Care Insurance(LTCI) on family caregivers(especially focused on female household members) labor supply in South Korea. When public care and informal care are substitutes, LTCI will change allocation of time of family caregivers to spend more time to paid work. The impact of LTCI on labor supply depends on each country's institutional level of public care services. If public care can not substitute for informal care, labor supply of family caregivers will not rise significantly. The conclusions of vigorous empirical study from western countries' are incompatible and problem of endogeneity in terms of methodology has been raised consistently. The dataset of this study are used the third and ninth waves of Korea Welfare Panel. As a result, the introduction of LTCI had no effect on labor supply of household members. Robust findings suggest the positive effects of caregiving on labor market outcomes in simple comparison t-test, but not in fixed-effect regression. Compared with western countries, South Korea's public care services can be interpreted as a supplement to only part that remained at the level does not substitute informal care. These findings may suggest that if LTCI become much more prevalent in the future, senior citizens and family members will be able to choose the LTCI arrangement that best suits their needs.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.54
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• pp.203-220
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• 2003

The purpose of this study is to identify and empirically study the factors that significantly influence amount and types of Informal caregiving to severely disabled elderly who have functional limitations. For this research, a set of caregivers living with the severely elderly were surveyed. Among collected data, data for 211 caregivers were used for this study. The results suggest that a variety of factors determine informal caregivers do systematically determine their allocation of time to the provision of elderly care. The results of four OLS regressions using data surveyed are as follows. First, The hypothesized role of income is supported in model 1 of the four regression models. Second, the technological components of informal care production significantly influences caregiving hours include the number of ADLs and IADLS needs help, the number of caregivers in the team, the utilization of formal services. Third, any component of production technology of household goods do not significantly influence caregiving hours. Fourth, the components of preferences significantly influence caregiving hours include caregiver's participation in market work, willingness money to pay market-purchased care for the elderly.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.297-308
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• 2008

Previous research on elderly care in rural areas has focused on inter-generational support, ignoring the possibility of elderly care among community members in the rural areas of Korea. This study attempts to explore the roles and potentials of community-based elderly care in rural areas where nearby family or formal services are unavailable. For this purpose, data was collected from the elderly in three Korean rural villages using qualitative case study methods. Each village was studied as a separate case study and in-depth interviews with the elderly in each village were conducted. All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim for the analysis. The data was analyzed using the Reflective Qualitative Analytic Technique. Results showed that rural elderly in all three villages had lunch, talked, and played together; almost everyday in the winter. However, the nature of care among rural elderly varied depending on the characteristics of the rural community (the traditional rural, the rural mixed with the urban, and the neighboring rural with the urban). Specifically, the use of mutual aids (providing food, repairing housing, and checking personal safety by telephone or visit, etc.) was most consistent at the traditional rural village. Because both the rural village mixed with the urban and the neighboring rural village with urban have better access to many aids and programs from formal institutions, mutual aids among community members decreased compared with the traditional rural village. However, regular group activities such as sports, dancing or debate help to provide pleasure and integrate the community. These results suggest that community relationships as a substitution for social support provide by family or formal services can be utilized in rural areas.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.585-595
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• 1999

The purpose of this study was to examine the predictors of burnout among informal caregivers of older adults. One hundred thirty seven caregivers who had provided care to older adults over 60 years of age for more than one month were included in the study. Most of the caregivers were white (91%) and female (78%). Mean ages of the caregivers were 64 years and 78% of them were married. Seventy percent of the older adults suffered from Alzheimer and related disease. In this study, caregivers reported that they experienced burnout once a month. The scores of emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment of the caregivers were in the moderate burnout range. To examine the predictors of burnout, discriminant analysis was used. Caregivers were divided by two groups based on the sum of scores (cutpoint＝6) on three dimensions of burnout after each dimension was categorized into high(3), moderate(2), and low(1). Nine predictors were included in the analysis : Caregiver's age, employment status, Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) of the older adult, presence of dementia of the older adult, caregiver's empathy toward the older adult (emotional and cognitive), and 3 coping strategies (negative, problem-focused, cognitive reconstructioning). Caregivers who reported high burnout showed higher cognitive empathy toward the older adults than those who showed low burnout. Caregivers who experienced high burnout used negative coping more often, and cognitive reconstructioning coping and problem focused coping less often than their counterparts. Wilks' Lambda was .78 indicating that differences between the two groups were significant. Cognitive empathy and cognitive reconstructioning coping showed high standardized canonical discriminat function coefficients over .40. Discriminant function with 9 predictors correctly classified 71% of the sample. In conclusion, informal caregivers also experienced certain level of burnout. Cognitive empathy and coping strategies predicted burnout experience of the caregivers. Based on this study, nursing intervention to the informal caregivers to improve their cognitive empathy toward the older adults and to modify their coping strategies in a way to reduce burnout experience can be applied. Further research to develop effective nursing interventions for the purpose of reducing burnout experience by modifying predictors was suggested.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.65-73
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to describe 1) the prevalence of caregiving among adult men and women in Korea and 2) the characteristics of caregiving context. The main results were as follows: 1) About 1 in 6 adults reported that they provided care for the relatives and friends during the previous year. 2) The proportion of male to female caregivers was similar, indicating a higher prevalence of male involvement than previous studies indicated. Yet, the relationships to care recipients and types of care were found to be different by gender of caregiver 3) Adult caregivers are most likely to provide care for the elderly, but continue to provide care for younger persons as well. 4) A nontrivial proportion of the respondents reported providing care for more than one person, suggesting the need to pay special attention to these multiple caregivers.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.23-37
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• 2006

As the fertility rate of Korea has recently decreased to the lowest level in the world, the recognition of the needs for social support for the child-care has been increased. This resulted in the announcement of National Policy of Child-Rearing Support in 2004. This study attempted to propose the activation of the family child-care for the preparation of the introduction of the National Policy of Child-Rearing Support. Using literature review and interview, the following research questions were addressed. Firstly, the actual situation of the family child-care was compared with that of the other types of child-care. Secondly, the policies of child-rearing support and the family child-care systems in other countries such as United Kingdom, Sweden and Japan were introduced. Finally, activations of the family child-care were discussed in terms of the introduction of the National Policy of Child-Rearing Support. The results of this study implies that the family child-care in Korea is different from that of other countries as well as other types of child-care in Korea. Also, it suggests that key factors of the activation of the family child-care in Korea are to identify as the small, informal and family-like child-care, to differentiate as the infant-care and non-standard time child-care from other types of child-care, and to increase the level of professionalization. In conclusion, family child-care should become an alternative for the low fertility problem.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.104-122
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• 2010

Long-term care insurance has been introduced in Korea a year ago, and we are in a stage requiring to set principles regarding the generosity of coverage and how to gradually extend the coverage. This study empirically analyzes how the long-term care insurance in Korea is operated. Special attention is given to who is the main beneficiary of the long-term care insurance introduction, and what is the factors influencing the elderly's decision to apply for or use long-term care services. Use of a detailed information of individuals' public health insurance and long-term care insurance from administration data made it possible to control for health status, socioeconomic status including family type, housing tenure, income level. Logit models were employed to analyze the effects of various socioeconomic factors on the likelihood of applying and using long-term care services. Also, this study employed a survey questioning whether to ever willing to take other option as a alternative to residential care or home-care and the level of cash benefit for which they are willing to replace the formal care with informal care. The result indicated that although the poorest elderly population groups are in the greatest need for the long-term care service, they are in difficulty using the service due to economic burden. This implies the copayment amount needs to be adjusted in order for the poor elderly group to be able to get the benefit of the long-term care service.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.227-256
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• 2016

This study examines whether formal home care has led to a reduction in family member's allocation of time to care of elderly and changing the allocation of other time: informal care, market work, leisure, etc. Long-term care for the elderly is not the entire burden of elderly families anymore due to the increasing of the formal home care service for elderly since mid-2000's. This study uses triple difference(DDD) methods for evaluating policy reforms when reforms are equally and nation-wide accessible and analyzes data from the 2004 and 2009 Time Use Survey Data of the National Statistical Office in Korea. The treatment group is composed of the families of the elderly who need care and low- and middle- income family. Controlling for demographic characters, the three-way interaction term has statically significant and negative impact on care time of family members in treatment group statistically significant. The results reveal that the policy changes in elderly home care service affect time allocation of family members with old adults, which decreases caregiving time in a daily life. This result becomes apparent when we limit the case of women. But the level of reduction is not enough to change other kinds of time-informal care, market work, leisure, etc. The results indicate that formal home care for the elderly can reduce the burden of caregiving in families, but only minimally.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.21-39
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to investigate service support programs for the work-family balance in the community. Service support programs in the community are at beginning stages of development, because it has taken about 10 years to put a self-governing system into practice in Korea. This study concentrates on service support programs developed by various service organizations in the city and does not include any rural districts. First, the developmental process of the work-family balance model and type of the service support program in the community were studied. Next, the situation of care service support was examined based on written articles. Finally, a few suggestions were made f3r work-family balance in the community. The developmental situation of work-flmily balance in Korea is in a stage which is shifting from the company-leading model to a family-company-community model. The most common type of service support program offered in the community until now has been the informal sector through relatives, neighbors or friends. However, service support programs, in the public sector by the government and in the voluntary sector by nonprofit organizations and corporations, has rapidly been growing and the number of services from each sector has also increased. Profit organizations in the private sector, such as medical and care service centers, are also now rapidly increasing. It appears that service support programs contributing to the work-family balance in the community come from a number of sectors, including public, voluntary, private and informal sectors, to suit consumer needs.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.893-904
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• 2000

The sample of this study consisted of 140 informal caregivers who provided care to the older adults(over 60 years of age) in Great Cleveland, USA. Self-rated questionnaires were utilized to collect information. The purpose of the study was to identify coping strategies most frequently utilized by informal caregivers of older adults and to examine predictors of the caregivers' health responses to the caregiving situation applying Lazarus and Folkman stress model(1984). Stepwise multiple regression was used to identify significant predictors among caregivers' demographic-socio-economic factors, older adult's dependency of activities of daily living(ADLs), caregiver's appraisal to the caregiving situation, and coping strategies. Informal caregivers (N=140) included in the study utilized help-seeking and problem-solving coping strategies more than self-blame and minimization of threat coping strategies. Caregivers' responses to the caregiving situation were observed by caregivers' perceived physical health, depression and life satisfaction. For perceived physical health, threat appraisal, older adult's dependency on ADLs, existential growth coping strategy, and monthly income accounted for 25% of the variance. Caregivers who appraised the caregiving situation as more threatening, reported higher dependency on ADLs, used more existential growth coping strategy, and had higher monthly income reported better physical health. For depression, threat appraisal, stress appraisal, existential growth coping strategy, self-blame coping strategy, and monthly income accounted for 48% of the variance. Caregivers who used more existential growth coping and less self-blame coping, appraised the situation as less threatening, less stressful, and had higher monthly income reported less depression. For life satisfaction, self-blame coping, existential growth coping, monthly income, stress appraisal accounted for 49% of the variance. Caregivers who used more existential growth coping, less self-blame coping, less stress appraisal, lower monthly income reported better life satisfaction. In conclusion, informal caregivers in this study utilized positive coping strategies such as problem-focused, existential growth, help-seeking, rather than negative coping strategies including self-blame. When they utilized positive coping strategies more often, caregivers experienced higher perceived physical health, higher life satisfaction and lower depression. Therefore, nursing intervention which utilized positive coping strategies is needed to enhance informal caregivers to have positive health responses to the caregiving demands.