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Relationship Between the Formation Conditions and Durations of One-Person Households in the Seoul Metropolitan Region

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Demography

Abstract

Rapid demographic changes have occurred in Korea, with the number of one-person households almost doubling between 2000 and 2010 in the Seoul metropolitan region. Developed countries experienced these changes previously through the so-called second demographic transition. The purpose of this article is to ascertain how both the socioeconomic attributes and the location characteristics of one-person households at the time of their formation affect the durations of these households under the rapidly changing Korean demography. The spatial distribution of the areal location quotient indexes for one-person households indicated that the concentration of these households is relatively higher in the inner cities of metropolitan areas and the outskirts of the Seoul metropolitan region. Meanwhile, the distribution patterns of the relative concentration levels for one-person households by age group exhibited obvious differences. In the survival analysis for the entire sample of this research, household attributes were the primary determinants. However, the results of the empirical analyses by age group indicated that location characteristics were significant as well, although the significance of the variables varied with the types of one-person households. The duration of households of one person under 40 years old was affected by their access to employment districts and the concentration level of one-person households in the area. In contrast, the duration of households of one person 65 years old and older was influenced by the distribution of affordable housing. The findings of this study provide a framework that is able to make sense of the changing characteristics of the one-person households of nations in transition from developing to developed countries.

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Notes

  1. Because a classification of the life-cycle stages varies depending on the field and purpose of research, the stages are not standardized.

  2. In previous studies (Bae 1993; Kim and Moon 2009; Stein 1981; Yi and Lee 2010), one-person households were classified by age, gender, income, and willingness, with age a common criterion. One-person households of Korea are best able to be classified by age group: under 30 (generally an unmarried student), 30 to 39 years (a voluntarily unmarried and first-hired person), 40 to 64 years (an involuntary live-alone due to divorce or bereavement), and 65 years or older (commonly an aged and retired person).

  3. The residential movement of a household causes changes in its location characteristics. However, changes in the residential location characteristics of a one-person household according to residential mobility were not considered in this study for two reasons. First, this study focused on household formation conditions. Second, 384 (54.0 %) of the analyses’ 711 one-person households were encountered more than once. The total number of their residential movements was 596, but almost all residential movements were internal within the originally located district (392 movements) or external into closely surrounding areas (66 movements). Moreover, the distribution by age group of movements into an area far from their originally located districts (138 movements) is as follows: 76 movements by persons under 30 years, 26 movements by those 30–39 years, 25 movements by those 40–64 years, and 11 movements by those 65 years and older. The share by each age group of movements within the same district or into a closely surrounding area was 70.0 % to 84.1 %. These findings are identical to outcomes of previous research showing short-distance mobility and mobile patterns into a living area with similar socioeconomic attributes (Choi and Cho 2005; Simmons 1968).

  4. The official retirement age (state pension age) is currently 60 years, and the normal pension age will be gradually increased to reach 65 by 2033. However, the effective retirement age is 71.1 years for males and 69.8 years for females (OECD 2013). Thus, this study assumes a retirement age of 65 years, which is the average of the official and effective retirement ages.

  5. The location characteristics were calculated by administrative spatial unit (see Fig. 1 and Table 1).

  6. A previous study (Richards et al. 1987) used the same method based on the evidence that the economic resources of households are correlated from one year to the next and that year-to-year changes are not very meaningful.

  7. The reasons for the dissolution of a one-person household were not asked for the KLIPS. In the previous literature, the reasons by age group except for death of the one-person householder were cited as forming a couple or marrying (Qu and de Vaus 2011; Richards et al. 1987), living with parents (Qu and de Vaus 2011), (re)marriage of middle-aged one-person households (Wulff 2007), economic difficulties (Mutchler 1992), and health problems (Mutchler and Burr 1991; Qu and de Vaus 2011; Soldo et al. 1984) in elderly one-person households.

  8. See footnote 2 for the classification standards of one-person household groups.

  9. The sample size (n), required in an analysis using time-to-event data, was calculated using the methodology proposed by Wang and Chow (2007), and the equation is as follows: n = (z α / 2 + z β)2 / b 2 p 1  p 2 d. The variables and parameters were assumed in the equation: 1.96 (z α / 2; significance level 0.05), 0.842 (z β; power 80 %), 0.7 (b: hazard ratio between the standard group and the test group), 0.5 (p 1, p 2: even distribution between the two groups) and 0.4 (d: ratio of event occurrence before the end of the study). The required sample size is approximately 160. Therefore, the sample sizes of all empirical analyses by the one-person household type except the group over 65 years old (see Table 6) are generally sufficient. However, the significance level of the explanatory variables on location characteristics may be improved by increasing the sample sizes.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) and funded by the Ministry of Education (2013R1A1A2058091) & the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (2015R1A2A2A04005886).

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  1. Department of Urban Planning and Design, University of Seoul, #312, Baebong-Hall, 163, Seoulsiripdae-ro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, 02504, Republic of Korea

    Changhyo Yi

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Yi, C. Relationship Between the Formation Conditions and Durations of One-Person Households in the Seoul Metropolitan Region. Demography 53, 675–697 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-016-0465-y

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