Images of Older Adults among University Students: a Comparison between Japan and Korea

This study investigated the differences between Japanese and Korean college students' images of the elderly. Japan is the most aged society worldwide, while South Korea has the highest rate of aging. Japan has a more advanced elderly welfare system than Korea. The datasets included responses from 320 Japanese students (collected in 2009) and 384 Korean students (collected in 2011). A semantic difference scale of 50 pairs of items was adopted. The chi-square test and logistic regression analyses were utilized. The five most prevalent images among Korean students were generally negative, whereas the most common images among Japanese participants were mostly neutral or positive. A greater degree of talking/good memories, activities with older adults, and experience of gerontological education showed positive relationships to favorable images, whereas living with grandparents and visiting facilities for the elderly did not yield the same results. It seems that greater interaction with grandparents and other senior citizens, as well as more extensive gerontology education, improved the images of the elderly in both countries, whereas merely visiting facilities for older adults seemed insufficient. The results also suggest that living with grandparents can lead to rather negative images of older adults.