Discriminant Analysis of the Perception of One's Own Remarriage with Korean Older Adults with Spouse or Partner

Background: 

     According to Statistics Korea’s research in 2018, the remarriage cases among older adults (65+) in 2017 marked 2,684 cases and 1,202 cases, respectively to older male and female. This supports the consistency with the trend of increase in remarriage among older adults in Korea. Previous studies concluded that remarriage affects subjective life of older adults positively. Remarriage is important in planning later life for older adults. Unlike most of the studies that focused on those who are divorced or bereaved, this study focused on people with spouses or partners since planning later life is not limited to those without spouses or partners. The study aims to predict an individual’s perception of one’s own remarriage in the future based on personal indicators.

Methods: 

     The participants of this study were 479 older adults with 248 older male cases and 231 older female cases, aged 60+ registered in community welfare centers in Korea. After the correlation analysis exploring the overall relations of variants, discriminant analysis was employed along 17 factors, including those factors mentioned from previous studies. The factors and measures are the average monthly income, educational background, subjective physical and mental health status, World Health Organization (WHO) Quality of Life questionnaire, Senior Meaning in Life Evaluation (SMiLE) and spirituality, Global Self-Esteem Scale, Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), Sense of Belonging, Engagement in Meaningful Activities Scale (EMAS), Self-Neglect Scale, Short Scales of Measuring Loneliness, relationship satisfaction with child and spouse, and perception of spouse’s or partner’s remarriage in the future.

Results:

     The analysis generated four significant predictors for older male and three significant predictors for older female accounting with a hit ratio of 75.2% and 79.2% each. For older male, structure matrix revealed that perceptions of a spouse’s or partner’s remarriage (.775), EMAS (-.436), Short Scales of Measuring Loneliness (.422) and Sense of Belonging (.403) affects one’s perception of remarriage. For older female, structure matrix revealed that perceptions of a spouse’s or partner’s remarriage (.788), EMAS (-.458), and Global Self-Esteem Scale (-.441) affects one’s perception of remarriage. The result shows that one’s perception of his or her spouse’s or partner’s remarriage affects his or her own remarriage perception in positive relation while engagement in meaningful activities, loneliness, sense of belonging, and self-esteem affects in negative relation.

Conclusion and Implications: 

     The result of this study implies that the perception of one’s own remarriage in the future can be influenced by various personal indicators. However, low scores in engagement in meaningful activities, sense of belonging, and self-esteem indicates unsatisfied attitude towards current state, and therefore led to positive perception of one’s own remarriage in the future. This approach can be harmful to both individual and remarried spouses, and therefore remarriage should be considered with caution that it is not a deficiency fulfilling device. This study conveys meaning in predicting perception of one’s own remarriage by personal indicators. Following study should specify the relations between predictors and include older adults with the experience of divorce and bereavement.