• Annals of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
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• v.34
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• pp.1.1-1.13
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• 2022

Background: Recently, there has been a call to improve the holistic welfare of dependent contractors (DCs). Thus, our study examined the relationship between DCs and mental health symptoms and how this relationship was modified by age, sex, and income status of workers. Methods: A total of 27,980 workers from the Fifth Korean Working Conditions Survey are included in our study. The participants who reported having depression or anxiety over the last 12 months are defined those who had mental health symptoms. We performed exact matching for age group and sex, followed by conditional logistic regression with survey weights. Finally, stratified analyses by age, sex and income level were conducted. Results: DCs were found to be at increased risk of depression/anxiety compared to other workers. The odds ratio (OR) is 1.52 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.06-2.17). In the stratified analyses, vulnerable groups were middle-aged (OR [95% CI]: 1.68 [1.10-2.54]), female (OR [95% CI]: 1.85 [1.20-2.84]), and low-income (OR [95% CI]: 3.18 [1.77-5.73]) workers. Conclusions: Our study's results reinforce those of other studies that show that DCs are at greater risk of experiencing mental health issues than other workers and that and this risk is greater for middle-aged, female, and low-income workers. These results suggest that appropriate policy efforts should be made to improve the psychological well-being of DCs.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.247-264
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• 2016

With the rapid acceleration of low-birth rate and population aging, the employment of the neglected groups of people including the middle aged class is a crucial issue in South Korea. In particular, in the 2010s, the number of the middle aged who want to find a new job after retirement age is significantly increasing with the arrival of the retirement time of the baby boom generation (born 1955-1963). Despite the importance of matching jobs to this emerging middle aged class, private job portals as well as the Korean government do not provide any online job service tailored for them. A gigantic amount of job information is available online; however, the current recruiting systems do not meet the demand of the middle aged class as their primary targets are young workers. We are in dire need of a specially designed recruiting system for the middle aged. Meanwhile, when users are searching the desired occupations on the Worknet website, provided by the Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor, users are experiencing discomfort to search for similar jobs because Worknet is providing filtered search results on the basis of exact matches of a preferred job code. Besides, according to our Worknet data analysis, only about 24% of job seekers had landed on a job position consistent with their initial preferred job code while the rest had landed on a position different from their initial preference. To improve the situation, particularly for the middle aged class, we investigate a soft job matching technique by performing the following: 1) we review a user behavior logs of Worknet, which is a public job recruiting system set up by the Korean government and point out key system design implications for the middle aged. Specifically, we analyze the job postings that include preferential tags for the middle aged in order to disclose what types of jobs are in favor of the middle aged; 2) we develope a new occupation classification scheme for the middle aged, Korea Occupation Classification for the Middle-aged (KOCM), based on the similarity between jobs by reorganizing and modifying a general occupation classification scheme. When viewed from the perspective of job placement, an occupation classification scheme is a way to connect the enterprises and job seekers and a basic mechanism for job placement. The key features of KOCM include establishing the Simple Labor category, which is the most requested category by enterprises; and 3) we design MOMA (Middle-aged Occupation Matching Algorithm), which is a hybrid job matching algorithm comprising constraint-based reasoning and case-based reasoning. MOMA incorporates KOCM to expand query to search similar jobs in the database. MOMA utilizes cosine similarity between user requirement and job posting to rank a set of postings in terms of preferred job code, salary, distance, and job type. The developed system using MOMA demonstrates about 20 times of improvement over the hard matching performance. In implementing the algorithm for a web-based application of recruiting system for the middle aged, we also considered the usability issue of making the system easier to use, which is especially important for this particular class of users. That is, we wanted to improve the usability of the system during the job search process for the middle aged users by asking to enter only a few simple and core pieces of information such as preferred job (job code), salary, and (allowable) distance to the working place, enabling the middle aged to find a job suitable to their needs efficiently. The Web site implemented with MOMA should be able to contribute to improving job search of the middle aged class. We also expect the overall approach to be applicable to other groups of people for the improvement of job matching results.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.188-195
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• 2012

Objectives: This study was conducted to examine the association between health condition and leaving the labor market among middle-aged and older adults in South Korea. Methods: Data was obtained from individuals aged 45 years and older participating in the 2006 and 2008 Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing. We used various health measures including chronic diseases, comorbidities, traffic accident injuries, disabilit of instrumental activities of daily living, depressive symptoms, and self-rated health. The odds ratios of job loss, and retirement, versus employment were calculated using multinomial logistic regression by each health measure. Results: In our cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis, health problems related to physical disabilities had the greatest effect on leaving the worksite. A shift in health condition from good to poor in a short period was a predictor of increased risk of unemployment but a persistent pattern of health problems was not associated with unemployment. Women with health problems showed a high probability of retirement, whereas among men, health problems instantly the possibility of both job loss and retirement. Conclusions: Health problems of middle aged and older workers were crucial risk factors for retirement and involuntarily job loss. Especially functional defect and recent health problems strongly and instanty affected employment status.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.47-56
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• 1992

In this paper, a mathematical model of learning curve is proposed to study the fi- nger's reaction time. The model is a logarithmic linear type which represents a lear- ning curve appropriately, and parameters are estimated by the linear. The learning coefficient and percentage of a reaction time can easily computed in the mathematical model. This quantitative approach provieds an important information to be used fot the working capqbility qualification of re-employment as well as the adaptability estimation of aged workers.

• KOREAN ASSOCIATION OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH NURSES
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.48-48
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• 2013

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.226-241
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• 2014

This study was intended to find out the factors affecting the efficacy and purpose of starting new business after their retirement of middle-aged office workers. The study also analyzed the relationship among these factors, founder's innovational mind, achievement desire, risk-taking mind and family support. For the purpose, questionnaires were collected 346 middle-aged employees working in Seoul and Kyonggi-do area. The findings were as follows. First, personal achievement desire and risk-taking mind strongly affected the efficacy of starting new business. Second, innovational mind, achievement desire and risk-taking mind had a positive effect on the purpose of starting new business. Third, family support had a moderate effect between achievement desire and the efficacy of the starting new business.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.56-62
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• 1985

This paper attempts to search demagraphic and socio characteristics of unmarried female workers aged 15-19 years using the data of unmarried female factory workers' survey made by the Korea Institute for Population and Health. Total number of female workers analysed for the study is 250, most of them finished high school(58 percent) or middle school(37 percent). Their average monthly income is 97,000 won and the income is mainly used for self-support, family support and saving for future plan. While 67 percent of the respndents have had experience of association with opposite sex, most of them insisted that purity of female should be kept until marriage As result, sex and population education program for those young female workers should be strengthened in consideration with their age characteristics.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.39-56
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the resilience of families of middle-aged married men upon the perception of family stress. The subjects were 301 married men age 40.54 living in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, Korea. Participants were selected using a purposive sampling method and a convenience sampling method. The data were statistically processed using the SPSS 18.0 program. First, participants who perceived family stress less and had higher family resilience tended to be better educated, have higher average family incomes, have permanent employment, be religious, and have no experience of unemployment. Participants who had low-paying, physical labor-based jobs or who were contract workers perceived family stress more and had lower family resilience. Second, among the variables that affected family resilience, those that most influenced the perceptual extent of family stress were the sense of belief system's family control, having a positive perspective, flexibility with regard to morality, religion, and organizational patterns, connectivity, family resources, communication-oriented mutual cooperative problem-solving, and emotional response. Third, the influence of family resilience upon the perception of family stress measured at 44.2% based on regression analysis and was statistically significant (F=4.606, ***p<.001).

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.66 no.3
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• pp.277-295
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• 2014

This study was purposed to examine the effect of the parental care burden on the labor force participation of the middle aged and older women. For this, this study used 2,125 samples aged from 50 to 70 years old that were extracted from 1st and 2nd wave of the Korean Retirement and Income Study(KReIS). In order to examine the causal relationship between two variables, Generalized Estimating Equation(GEE) and Multi-nominal Regression analysis were performed. The results showed that there was a positive effect of the parental care burden on the labor force participation of the middle aged and older women. However, this effect was limited only to the employment to the unpaid family workers. In addition, the effect was varied according to the level of caring time to the old parents. Based on that, several policy and practical implications were suggested.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.83-88
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• 2019

The 7,993 cases of Survey Report of Fatal Industrial Accidents conducted jointly by the MEOL and the KOSHA for the recent seven years(2007-2013) were categorized according to personal and occupational characteristics, industry types, business sizes, job types, activities at the time accident, types of accidents, material agents(assailing materials), unsafe conditions, and unsafe acts. And it is found that among the 72.2 percent of fatal occupational accidents in the construction and manufacturing industries are caused by falling, sticking, bumping and being caught under objects & overturning. For this study, through the empirical analysis on causes of fatal industrial accidents, was used to identity high risk groups based on total data of 7,993 victims of occupational accidents. An annual fatal occupational injury (FOI) rate per 10,000 workers was about 0.47‱. The middle-aged group and the elderly group showed the highest FOI rates per 10,000 workers (0.73‱, 0.80‱), and the daily workers showed the highest FOI rate (1.46‱), and the craft and related trades workers showed the highest FOI rate (2.17‱). In case of industry type the mining industry (7.26‱) showed the highest FOI rate, followed by the sewerage, waste management, materials recovery and remediation activity industry (3.91‱) and the construction industry (2.71‱). The primary high risk target group that requires a strategy designed to reduce fatal occupation injuries caused by falling and bumping & contact(collision) is the construction industry, and the secondary high risk target group in the construction industry is classified as the equipment, machine operating and assembling workers in the construction industry, those aged 50 years old and above need the prevention measures against bumping & contact(collision) and being caught under an object & falling(objects), while those aged less than 50 years old need prevention measures against falling(persons).