48.4% of 40-64-year-olds
Care for parents and children
Hiring/income rates alone
Having difficulty analyzing middle-aged lives
“Developing a new policy as an indicator of middle-aged and elderly quality of life
Customized support”
ėŽė§ íë *Data = Seoul Metropolitan Government’s middle-aged quality of life indicator (provided by Seoul)
Mr. A, who lives in his late 50s in Nowon-gu, Seoul, lives with his youngest son who is a college student. Thanks to the fact that he owns a house and stable spouse income, there is no apparent difficulty.
Recently, however, A has a concern that he can’t tell. Recently, he was in a “sandwich care” state where he had to take care of both parents and children while taking care of his mother’s hospital treatment and meals, which had become uncomfortable with his movement. A city said, “I don’t need a job right now, and I’m not in a very difficult situation, but I think my life is gone.”
Until now, the quality of life for middle-aged people in Korea has been evaluated in terms of income and employment rates. However, an increasing number of middle-aged people, like A, cannot measure the quality of life by existing standards. At the “Seoul Middle-Aged Policy Forum” held by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Seoul 50 Plus Foundation on the 15th, various lives of middle-aged people, which are not explained by income and employment alone, were also discussed as key topics.
“Thanks to the severance pay and spouse income I received when I retired last year, I’m not worried about living expenses right now, but I’m at a loss when I’m done working,” said B in his 50s. “I want to set up a recruitment app and find a new job, but I’m frustrated because I don’t know where to start.” C, in his 60s, who lives as a single-person household and works as a security guard through reemployment after retirement, said, “I’m not worried about my income or health right now, but I’m already afraid to think that there will be no one to take care of me in a few years.”
This reality is also evident through figures. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, 48.4% of middle-aged and elderly people aged 40 to 64 in Seoul are in the same “sandwich care” situation as A. Based on the age of 50-54, it rises to 62.1%.
An official from the Seoul Metropolitan Government said, “The employment rate and income alone do not show various lives of middle-aged people. It is most important to understand the lives and policy needs of middle-aged people depending on whether they live or care.”
The Seoul Metropolitan Government is also speeding up to solve such middle-aged concerns. This year, the Seoul Metropolitan Government established a middle-aged support department in the Lifelong Education Bureau, a dedicated organization for middle-aged people. Expanding ‘customized support’ away from uniform support is a key role of the middle-aged support department.
For systematic support, the ‘middle-aged and elderly quality of life index’ was also developed. The indicators consisted of 12 areas and 75 detailed indicators in three categories: basic competency (elastic), living competency (active), and conversion competency (leap). “According to the results of the index analysis, there is virtually no gap in satisfaction between the employed and the unemployed, but there is a big difference depending on the type of housing occupancy and marital status,” a Seoul Metropolitan Government official said. “From a long-term perspective, the potential threat of middle-aged single-person households is great.”
The Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to set this year as the base year for quality of life indicators and identify new policy demands based on this. An official from the Seoul Metropolitan Government said, “We will use the indicators to closely find invisible differences in life behind the data of ‘average’, develop new policies, and connect them to citizens in need.”