A Study of the Life Prospect of Koreans: Focusing on Its Level, Pattern and Predictive Factors

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the levels, pattern and factors of life prospect of Korean household members. First, latent class analysis and one-way ANOVA on “Outlook of 10 Areas of Household Life One Year Later” in the 7th Year Korea Welfare Panel Study of the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, were conducted in order to explore the existence and patterns of latent class in terms of life outlook. Next, multinominal logit analysis was followed to analyze predictive factors affecting class membership. Then, multiple regression analysis was applied to the subjective predictive factors only in order to infer relationships between objective inequality and subjective inequality. The results are summarized as follows: first, the levels and types of the outlook of household life were classified into four categories; secondly, regarding positive and negative levels of life outlook, residence place and subjective-conscious factor give more influence than objective-physical resources, and regarding types of life outlook, subjective factor, characteristics of generations and satisfaction with leisure culture gave strong influence. However, the subjective variables affecting a latent class were greatly influenced by objective, social and economic status. Thus, subjective class consciousness turns out to play a significant interpretive role of objective social inequality.