The Improvement of Legislation for the Prevention of Lonely Death According to a Rise in One-person Households
Authors:   Korean Public Land Law Association, Seon Eun-Ae 
Published: December 2022

One-person households that are rapidly growing these days brought about so many changes enough to alter the direction of various policies. One-person households increased by about 27.5% in five years from 5,618,677 households in 2017 to 7,165,788 households in 2021. This growth appeared to be an increasing trend overall in their 10s, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and their 70s and older. A one-person household implies the one that a household of living on his or her own or one person of living alone independently earns a living such as cooking, sleeping and so on. An increase in one-person households can be considered to be shown by the causes such as a change in consciousness about marriage, the family dissolution and financial poverty due to separation, divorce, graduation from marriage, etc., and the the growth in elderly single households owing to aging. The existing lonely death was focused on the issue of the lonely death in the elderly. Thus, the policy efforts have been made against it. However, the likelihood of dying alone is mounting recently in case of the social isolation due to the disconnection of personal relationships among one-person households. A rise in one-person households is suggesting that the lonely death may be seen from all age groups, not the problem according to aging any more. The 「Act on the Prevention and Management of Lonely Death」, which has been in effect since April 1, 2021, established a legal basis for it as there is a need for the integrated and systematic policy promotion at the national level such as arranging a support system in line with the characteristics of the subjects based on the accurate survey, the systematic survey and research of the lonely death to avoid the lonely death. But a confusion is being created because of being not specified the clear definition of lonely death, and the criteria for conducting a fact-finding survey. With being carried out every five years, the direction of diverse policies was changed due to a rise in one-person households by 27.5% in 5 years. In light of this, there is a doubt about the effectiveness of a customized policy depending on a survey on the actual conditions of single-person households because the fact-finding period is long. Also, a necessary measure should be taken with regard to the early detection of people at risk of dying alone among one-person households. Still, to enforce this action, the relevant professionals must be cultivated. Nevertheless, just with the grounds for an effort to devise a measure against it, there is a lack of specific contents to strengthen expertise. Accordingly, through revising the 「Act on the Prevention and Management of Lonely Death」, there is a need to establish a legal basis available for preventing the lonely death in one-person households and to heighten the effectiveness of the policy by changing the fact-finding survey of being conducted every five years to three years. Effective policies will be in place to block the lonely death only when analyzing a cause for it and improving legislation suitable for it after grasping the present status of the lonely death through the fact-finding survey on this with recognizing the lonely death according to a rise in one-person households as a social issue. In addition, there is a need to reduce the problems caused by a welfare blind spot through expanding the dedicated professionals and enhancing the expertise and to develop the standardized guidelines to combat the lonely death. This legislative improvement will lead to preventing lonely death in one-person households and to making it possible for living a human life, resulting in being capable of realizing the promotion of the welfare of the people.