This research tried to present some basic data necessary to give effective support to urban retirees who already returned to the farm by looking into factors effecting on their adjustments to the lives before they returned to the farm and after they did so to know how well they adapt to the rural lives. For the purpose, we made a survey of 408 returners to the farm over the age of 50 for 6 days from October 18 to October 23 in 2004 using questionaires. The results show the followings. First, there are significant difference in the satisfaction with the rural life occurred by the sociological demographic changes according to 'health condition', 'subjective economic ability' and 'previous job'. Second, the difference of satisfaction with the rural lift which was taken place by the reasons before they moved to the farm is effected considerably by what made them decide to return to the farm first whether they prepared for it or not and how much money they have to do so. Therefore, to succeed in adjustment to the rural lives, their decision should be made by positive causes, they have to prepare concretely for it before they carry out their plans and they had better have enough money to move. Third, the difference of satisfaction with the rural life occurred by the reasons after they moved to the farm is effected by 'satisfaction with the forming information', 'the number of friends or neighbors', 'the frequency of meeting the friendly', 'the level of intimacy with neighbors' and 'their efforts to improve the relations with other residents'. And the sensitiveness to perceive the inconvenience according to the rural life is related strongly to the satisfaction with the rural life in the above 6 areas. Fourth, the repression analysis implemented to find how much the above 3 factors effect on the satisfaction with the rural life shows that it is 'returner's current health condition', 'farming education', 'farming fund' and 'effort to be intimate with other residents' that are very important.

In this study was investigated the value of rural residence in later life from the personal, regional, and national perspective. For this purpose, a three-round Delphi technique was used to collect data through a series of surveys to obtain the consensus of a group of 38 experts in value of rural residence in later life in the future. In the first round was sent to them unstructured questionnaire and in the second and third round, the summarized results of the first and second round were delivered to rate the importance of each item for confirmation and validation of the results. Data were analyzed using content analysis and descriptive statistics. The major findings of this study are as follows: First, the personal, regional, and national value of rural residence in later life was selected 7 domains 23 items, 4 domains 22 items, and 3 domains 20 items respectively. Experts consented that the value from the personal perspective will be the highest among 3 perspectives. Second, as the value of rural residence from the personal perspective, it was showed nature-friendly life, physical health emotional serenity, lower expenditure, enjoyable filming, feeding the safe food, and etc,. As the value of it from the regional perspective was showed usage of retirees' speciality and experience to community development and the increase of recreational function in the rural. Also, from the national perspective, it was showed the sustainability of the rural, the establishment of welfare base, balanced development between regions. Based on these results, policy implications were discussed.

Recently, due to the growing concern of the public in rural amenities and hobby farming works, much more urbanites, especially near-retirees, have been interested in rural life style than before. However, in spite of popular preference to ruralities, little has been known about their demand on retired rural life. Therefore, this study examined urbanites' attitude to preparatory works for out-migration, preferred residential site conditions and life style in the countryside. For this purpose, data were collected from a survey with the sample of 386 urban residents aged 40 to 65 rho hoped moving into the countryside after retirement, through structured questionnaires. Descriptive statistical works were performed using SPSS/PC windows program. The major findings of this study were as follows; (1) Host of urbanites, who answered in this study, planned to prepare ex-urban movement in their fifties and to put into practice in their sixties. (2) Key factors of location decision on movement were proximity/accessibility to centre city, medical service level, and distance to their family or friends. And about a half of respondents wanted second home in the countryside. (3) Most favoured rural life styles were nature-friendly well-being and hobby/healthy firming. Generally, the respondents of this survey had the positive attitude to do works in their later life, especially preferred to farming and volunteering in their communities.

Rural Korea has been becoming heavily aged societies from the end of 20th century due to the massive depopulation of young generation and extension of the average span of human beings. Although rural communities in Korea had been traditionally based on closely webbed social relations, almost all of community self-help organizations disappeared in recent time with very strong urbanization trend. However, almost all rural villages in Korea have the village seniors' union -'NO-IN-HOE' in Korean speaking- of which members usually use, operate and maintain community facilities in terms of voluntary base. Using these facilities, most of public/common/private services and community activities have been being served or provided. So, the purpose of this study is to investigate the usage tendency of community facilities and needs of the rural elderly and to propose the improvement strategies for their optimum usage. For this purpose, data was gathered both from community (107 villages) and individual level surveys(881 older people). The statistical method used for data analysis was descriptive statistics. The major findings were as follows : It was found that the dominant family type of the rural elderly was elderly-only household (75%) with very limited economic capability. There are 2~3 common community facilities with village including the seniors' center -'KYOUNG-RO-DANG' in Korean speaking. Many of the elderly (74%) use the center once or twice per week. There are several rooms in the center, like as kitchen bathroom and health room, of which usage frequency differs respectively. Many rural elderly want assistance from out-of-village for good maintenance and free use of these facilities.

As the proportion of the elderly population in rural area is growing rapidly, the quality of life of the rural elderly is becoming a major concern. According to Rowe and Kahn(1997), active and productive engagement in society is a central component of successful aging. Yet, the effect of various social support network on psychological well-being of the rural elderly is not well known. This study is an attempt to empirically examine the connection between social support network and psychological well-being of the rural elderly. For this purpose, community welfare specialists gathered data from 1033 rural elderly in 32 villages, using structured questionnaires. The statistical methods used for the data analysis were descriptive statistics, cross tables, ANOVA and hierarchical regression analysis using spss wins 10.0 program. The major findings of this study are as follows: The majority of rural elderly have social support networks composed of more than one person and the mean number of their social support network was ten persons. The elderly who keep frequent contact with many adult children and friend/neighbor are happier than the elderly who keep contact with fewer number of children and friends. The size of the network of relatives significantly affects the level of loneliness of the elderly. Theoretical and practical implications of this study for the improvement of the quality of life of the rural elderly is discussed.