Social Structural Influences on Healthy Aging: Community-Level Socioeconomic Conditions and Survival Probability of Becoming a Centenarian for Those Aged 65 to 69 in South Korea

Abstract

This study estimated the associations between community-level socioeconomic conditions and survival probability of becoming a centenarian (SPBC) for those aged 65 to 69 in South Korea to determine the social structural influences on healthy aging. The indicators of socioeconomic and data of centenarians were obtained from Statistics Korea database 2014: population census and social survey. Significant positive correlations were found between SPBC and community-level socioeconomic conditions (minimum cost of living and economically active population, water supply and sewerage, pave a road with asphalt, and urbanization). SPBC male and female predictors had higher economic level and base facilities (R2)=0.578, p<.001). The study provides evidence that community-level socioeconomic conditions are important correlates of SPBC for those aged 65 to 69 in South Korea. These strategies should include social structural influences on successful aging in the overall socioeconomic conditions.

Socio-ecological perspective of older age life expectancy: income, gender inequality, and financial crisis in Europe

“…OLE can be affected by socio-ecological indicators. The term 'OLE' refers to being physically active with preservation of functional capacity and socioeconomic wellbeing as exemplified through an active life in society without diseases [3,19,21,22,26]. Consequently, OLE inequality may be affected or controlled by socioecological environment and hereditary factors, although the latter was excluded from this study.…”

“…Consequently, OLE inequality may be affected or controlled by socioecological environment and hereditary factors, although the latter was excluded from this study. Thus, macro-level socio-ecological inequality factors were focused on in this study [3,[19][20][21]33].…”

“…However, sociocultural components of a country-level OLE mentioned above have not been studied in relation to socio-ecological inequality indicators. Although studies have indicated that social and health level factors [3,[27][28][29][30] such as GNI, GII, and OLE [3,[18][19][20][21] can predict socio-ecological inequality, this study aims to confirm if these factors are affected by a country's DCI. Furthermore, although studies have investigated the effect of health and economic crisis [5,12,15,31,32], the association between country-level OLE and GNI, GII, or DCI has not been reported.…”

“…Several studies have studied health inequalities and economic crises across countries [5,7,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] or national income and gender inequality in health inequalities [3,[18][19][20][21]. However, few studies have addressed the relationship between socio-ecological inequality indicators including GNI, GII, and DCI caused by financial crisis and OLE [5,12,13,15].…”

“…It can be influenced by biological, psychosocial, and environmental factors [3,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. However, sociocultural components of a country-level OLE mentioned above have not been studied in relation to socio-ecological inequality indicators.…”