여아와 여성이 안전한 지역사회 환경 조성방안(Ⅳ)

Policy to create a safe community environment for the senior women in Korea

Ⅰ. 서 론 1. 연구의 필요성 및 목적 □ 현재 여성노인은 전통적인 가족관과 성역할에 따라 가정 내에서 평생 배우자와 가족을 돌보는 역할을 해왔고 노후에도 손자녀 돌봄이나 가사노동 등 돌봄 역할을 지속하면서도 자녀들에게서 노후에 돌봄을 기대할 수 없는 경우가 많다. 더욱이 여성노인은 경제적으로도 남성노인에 비해 훨씬 취약한 상태에 놓여 있다. 뿐만 아니라 노후가 준비되지 않은 상태에서 자녀에 대한 의존도는 높으며, 남성중심의 가부장적 이데올로기가 깔린 가족관계, 신체적ㆍ경제적ㆍ사회적인 자립의 결여, 부양의 책임을 둘러싼 관련된 가족갈등 등으로 인해 여성노인은 가족원에게 학대를 받을 위험도 높다. □ 본 연구의 목적은 이러한 상황에서 여성노인의 심리적ㆍ정서적, 사회적, 경제적 안전을 비롯하여 공간에서 직면하는 실증적이고 구체적인 안전의 현황을 분석하고, 이에 대한 정책적 대안을 제시하는 데 있다. 또한 '노인'이라는 집단을 하나의 동일한 집단으로 보는 성중립적인 기존 연구의 관점에서 벗어나 노인집단 내의 남녀별 격차를 규명하고, 노인인구 내 존재하는 연령, 건강상태, 의존도, 사회 경제적 지위 등에 따라 분화된 집단별로 당면하고 있는 안전실태와 그 개선 방안을 모색하고자 한다. 2. 연구내용 □ 이번 연구에서는 심리적/사회적 영역으로부터 신체적 영역, 경제적 영역, 공간적 영역에 이르기까지 노인의 안전을 위협하는 요인들을 망라해서 보다 포괄적인 시각에서 여성노인의 문제를 연구하고자 한다. ○ 심리/사회적 안전 분야에서는 방임, 심리적 학대, 정서적 돌봄의 결핍, 그리고 사회적 관계로부터의 고립 등 노인이 가족과 사회로부터 경험하는 정서적 위협요인과 정책적 필요성에 대해 살펴볼 것이다. ○ 신체적 안전영역에서는 노인을 향해 행해지는 신체적 폭력과 위협요인을, 경제적 안전 문제에서는 노인의 빈곤실태 및 최저 생활 유지를 위협하는 요인, 그리고 정책적 수요에 대해 살펴볼 것이다. ○ 마지막으로 공간 안전영역에서는 노인의 주거 및 주택 공간에서 발생하는 위험요인과 신체적으로 의존도가 증가해가고 건강이 나빠지면서 원하는 주거형태가 무엇인가에 대해서 알아보고자 한다.

It was found that female seniors are overall in a poorer condition than men. The characteristics of South Korea, which is at an early phase of aged society, are that population aging has progressed in a relatively short period and due to "compressed modernization" of the country it has not been long since higher education became universalized. The education gap among seniors is one of the distinguishing elements between the 60s and 80s age groups. While 68.8% of women aged 80 or older have elementary school education or less, furthermore, only 33.96% of men in the same age group have such low education attainment. With traditional gender discrimination in education having faded away in younger generations, the proportion of those with elementary school education or less among women in their 60s or older drops to 27.57%. Only 6.7% of spouseless older men were living with their children while the figure was 21.9% for women. This suggests that while women live longer than their spouse, they live by themselves or with children for the rest of life in poor financial and health conditions. 70.9% of older men received care from their spouse in the past one year; however, the number was only 26.1% for women. To a question asking with whom they consulted about their personal issues, the proportion of those who marked spouse was 62.4% and 25.0% among senior men and women, respectively. As women have a longer life span than men in general, a number of women expend the last phase of their life without spouse. 30.3% of men and 41.9% of women confessed that they felt isolated and very lonely. This sense of lonesomeness grows stronger with age: almost half the seniors aged 80 or older (47.3%) suffered from loneliness. Older women in South Korea have lived heavily reliant on their families and/or children especially after the death of their husband. They were vicariously satisfied with their children's college educations and successes. Since their children no longer take living with parents for granted, however, a number of senior women are left to live by themselves unprepared for their senior years. They are experiencing seniorhood with no role models as neither their parents nor any woman around them lived such a long life. They are the first senior generation of the aging era who are facing a much longer life span than their parent generation but unprepared for an active, independent seniorhood. While the financial dependence, sense of isolation, poor housing conditions, and alienation from familial relationships that seniors experience are at a distressing level against the backdrop in which nascent measures to protect seniors from poverty and geriatric illnesses are being introduced, women seem to be faring much worse than men. About two thirds of women in later seniorhood (68.8%) are elementary school educated or less. For most of them, higher education was a distant dream. Given that the figure is only 33.96% among men in the same age group, it can be said that those women are the last generation who suffered traditional gender discrimination. Also, those who were not even given an opportunity to learn how to read and write Korean as they grew up under the Japanese colonial rule often find it difficult to communicate with their children who have received higher education. 60.17% of older women who were born in rural communities prior to the industrialization of the country and have lived their whole life as farmers are surviving their husband. As to the monthly household income, 75% of women aged 80 or older responded to less than 490,000 won. In the case of their male counterparts, the proportion of those who earn less than 490,000 won per month was 30.77%, indicating that the economic gap between South Korean men and women is much wider among seniors. With the government's basic old-age pension system failing to ensure a minimum livelihood for older citizens, an extended life span is not a blessing but an inescapable dis