An Analysis of Housing Conditions of the Elderly in Rural Areas and the Direction of Rural Housing Welfare Policy from the Perspective of ‘Aging in Place’

Abstract

It is widely known that the elderly want to spend the rest of their lives in the place where they live, rather than in a hospital or nursing facility, even if they have limited mobility. In Korea, as the aging trend is getting serious in recent years, a social consensus is being created that the local community should be changed to be age-friendly so that the elderly can spend the rest of their lives comfortably in the place where they have lived their whole life. The purpose of this study is to suggest the direction and tasks of residential welfare policy for the rural elderly from the perspective of ‘aging in place’. In order to this, related statistical analysis and field case studies were conducted to derive the housing welfare demand desired by the elderly in rural areas. And based on these findings, housing welfare policy alternatives for the elders in rural area were suggested. In this study, based on the analysis of housing conditions and policy demands, the following three directions for housing welfare policies for the elderly in rural areas are presented: ① Enhancing the safety and convenience of housing for the elderly in rural areas ② Establishing an age-friendly village and town development project model to improve the residential environment of rural villages ③ Establishing a rural housing welfare delivery model based on AIP.