Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

This study identifies factors affecting young and middle-aged people’s stigma against older adults. By identifying the factors, the situations in which older adults are stigmatized and then discriminated against because of age, should be changed. This study finds stigma a cause of discrimination against older adults and focuses on the stigmatizing subject, not the stigmatized subject. For this study, data from 2017 Age Integration Survey sponsored by the National Research Foundation of Korea and collected on March 2017 were used. Subjects of this study are 854 persons of the survey participants in fifteen districts in South Korea. They are 480 young people aged from eighteen to forty-four and 374 middle-aged people aged from forty-five to sixty-four. Four independent variables of this study are their opinions on age flexibility, age diversity, discrimination against older adults reflected on media, and how people treat older adults in their community. Multiple Regression Analysis on how these variables affect their stigma against older adults and comparison among the young and middle-aged people were conducted by SPSS. Firstly, both young and middle-aged people have a similarly high level of stigma against older adults. Secondly, two common variables affecting stigma against older adults in young and middle-aged people are discrimination against older adults reflected on media and age flexibility. This means the more they recognize discrimination against older adults reflected on media and age flexibility, the stronger stigma against older adults they have. Thirdly, sex and monthly average income and the opinion on how people treat older adults are significant variables only for the young people. Also, home area is a significant variable only for the middle-aged people. This implies that sociodemographic factors are also important. The more the young people feel that people in their community treat older adults badly, the stronger stigma they have. There are some practical suggestions for these results. Firstly, increasing the frequency of showing older characters and focusing on older adults’ positive characteristics on TV programs will be effective in lowering stigma against older adults. Secondly, although both age groups showed a positive relation between their opinion on age flexibility and stigma against older adults, the level of this relation was higher in the young people. Therefore, there is a need to increase awareness about the advantages for every age group that age flexibility brings. That is that a lowered age barrier in society should not be a cause for stigma against older adults by increasing awareness and improving related policies. Finally, social trust related to older adults should be strengthened by making the community more supportive and considerate for older adults, considering the fact that young people are affected by how others treat older adults.