広島市における「無配偶中年者」の生活意識と将来展望 : 広島市民意識調査の結果から

It is said that recently a growing number of the middle-aged people feel more insecure about the life at old age. Then what kinds of problems make them so insecure? This question led us to conduct a questionnaire survey for 3000 residents from 40 or older to 64 in Hiroshima City in 2000. As a result, we collected 1502 effective questionnaires. In the course of analyzing obtained data, we found that whether the respondents have a spouse or not closely related with their stratification status. In short the percentage of respondents who belong to lower strata was quite a few among those who don't have a spouse (due to being unmarried, divorcement or the death of a spouse) in comparison with among those who have a spouse. For example, among those who have a spouse, 82.5% had their own house and only 11.8% lived in a rental house, whereas among those who don't have a spouse, 55.7% had their own house and 40.6% lived in a rental house. As for annual income, 44.6% were less than 3 million yens among those who don't have a spouse, whereas 7.6% were less than 3 million yens among those who have a spouse. It means that people who earn small income accounted for a great number among those who don't have a spouse in comparison with among those who have a spouse. As for school career, the percentage of those whose final school career was “junior high school" or “high school" was relatively high and the percentage of those whose final school career was “college" or “university" was relatively low among those who don't have a spouse. The degree of feeling that the respondents lead a good quality of life was closely related with whether they have a spouse or not. The percentage of those who felt that they lead a full life was remarkably low among those who don't have a spouse in comparison with those who have a spouse. Taking only those samples that don't have a spouse, the percentage of male respondents who expressed emptiness of life was greater than that of female respondents. Namely, 38.0% of m