KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

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 disaster. The fact that 32.8% of older women said "Living is just an agony" shows the harsh reality that seniors of this country are facing. Despite their age and declining health, many women still think that they need to work for their family. Although older women tend to be exposed to worse self-perceived health and a higher rate of chronic illnesses compared to men in later seniorhood, many women even into their 80s continue housework including taking care of their grandchildren in particular. Since women are considered a provider rather than a recipient of care, however, the rate of receiving care among older women is lower compared to their male counterparts.