Abstract

We aimed to examine determining factors including personal, social, political and community based environments on quality of life of single household old women in rural, island, fishery area with ecological approach. To compare their quality of life, we included urban area's women also. We used 501 single household women over 65-years-old living in island, fishery, rural and urban areas to this study. 185 single household old women in rural area, 159 from fishery area, 77 from island area were our research target. 80 single household old women in urban area were included to compare their qualities of life. We can summarize our result like this. First, qualities of life of single household old women were low. Their income level and plan of later life score were lower than median score. Their external control score was high. Scores of micro system were lower than median. Satisfaction of social activity was median level. The perceptions of meso-and exosystem were higher than median. Second, Social networks in micro system and intimacies of families and neighborhood in exosystem had positive influences on qualities of life of single household women. Satisfaction of social activities was most important and continuing influential factor. The influences of personal and microsystem were more important than the effects of meso- and exosystem for qualities of life of single household old women. Third, to improve qualities of single household old women, we suggest developing programs of maintaining their social networks and support from the networks, Families' meeting and having attention of their social network, Activation of kyung-ro-dang program, and making long-term plan for helping family's and neighborhood's meeting with them.

Keywords

• quality of life;
• single household old women;
• ecological approach

• 삶의 질;
• 여성독거노인;
• 생태학적 접근;