신빈곤계층의 생활만족도와 영향요인에 관한 연구

Abstract

While Korean society has experienced several economic crises over the past few decades, a new class of poverty has emerged, which has been labeled “the new poor.” The current study aims to compare the differences among the new poor, old poor, and non poor, and to investigate the factors influencing the new poor’s life satisfaction. For this purpose, 198 new poor, 78 old poor, and 2,753 non poor samples from the Korean labor and Income Panel Study(KLIPS) data were selected. The 15th wave collected in 2012 was used for the final analysis. The results are as follows. First, the new poor’s overall life satisfaction and all sub satisfaction dimensions(i.e., leisure activities, housing environment, family relations, social network) were identified at the moderate level, which was significantly higher than that of the old poor, but lower than that of the non poor. Second, there were mean differences among the three groups on economic, social resource, psychological, and socio demographic factors. Third, the new poor’s overall life satisfaction was negatively associated with economic strain but positively associated with physical health status, positive perception of social status mobility, and the presence of a spouse. In particular, based on the results that showed the relationship between positive perception of social status mobility and overall life satisfaction was significantly stronger in the new poor than in the non poor, it was concluded that positive perception of social status mobility is a key factor for improving the new poor’s overall life satisfaction. Fourth, among the new poor, leisure activity satisfaction was negatively influenced by economic strain but positively influenced by subjective social status. Housing environment satisfaction was positively associated with financial support but negatively influenced by economic strain. Family relation satisfaction was positively affected by the presence of a spouse, financial support, subjective social status, physical health status, and positive view. Finally, social network satisfaction was positively associated with total assets and physical health status. Based on these results, implications, suggestions for social work practice and policy makers, and future research directions were discussed.