Proceedings of 8th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
9 - 10 February 2015, Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-71-9
Do Active Seniors Exist in Korea?
Lee, Youngho*, Yang, Seung-Ryong† and Yang, Hyekyung‡
A rapid increase in the average life expectancy in Korea raises concerns and
interests among central and local governments, businesses, politicians and
academics. Under this situation, a new generation called “Active Senior” has recently
been highlighted in the Korean society, which seems to show quite different behavior
and preference from those of the pre-existing old age groups. The immediate
objective of this study is to determine if the active seniors are really existent or just
illusive made by the flippant media. If they are evident, we then pursue to understand
how they are differentiated from other generations adjacent to them.
To this end, we first build a framework that describes characteristics of generations.
The framework is composed of four domains, emotional, societal, economic, and
physical domains, under which specific indicators and proxy variables are structured
in a hierarchical fashion. A cluster analysis is then applied to test if the active seniors
are distinguishable from other generations. This research seems to have important
implications and suggestions to business circles as well as to the government policies
such health, medical, food, pension, and welfare policies.
Track of Research: Economics
*
Ph.d. candidate, Department of Food and Resource Economics, College of Life Science &
Biotechnology, Korea University, Seoul Korea and Research Associate, Industry & Trade Analysis
Division, Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade, Sejong Korea. Email : gonlee77@kiet.re.kr,
tel : 82-44-287-3267, fax : 82-44-287-3500, address : 370, Sicheong-daero, Sejong-si 339-007, Korea.
†
Professor, Department of Food and Resource Economics, College of Life Science & Biotechnology,
Korea University, Seoul Korea. Email : sryang@korea.ac.kr, tel : 82-2-3290-3036, fax : 82-2-32903040, address : 145 Anam-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 136-701, Korea
‡
Corresponding author, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Welfare, Westminster graduate
School of Theology, Korea. Email : yanghk@wgst.ac.kr, tel : 82-31-270-6039, fax : 82-31-270-6039,
address : 201-11 Dongbaekjukjeon-dearo, Giheung-Gu, yongin-Si, Gyeonggi-do.