Background
There are several vulnerable social groups in rural areas such as petty elderly farmers, senior citizens who live alone, low-income grandparents- grandchildren families, multi-cultural families and so on. Although life conditions of the vulnerable social groups are significantly poor, the effort of grasping their life conditions has been insufficient. Also, in the face of specific problems of vulnerable rural areas originated from the characteristics of rural areas, the vulnerable social groups in the areas have not been handled by researches. Therefore, through building up related data, this study deducts outcomes and effectiveness of related policies and suggests effective policies for the vulnerable social groups with results of analysing the data.
The purpose of this study is as follows. First, the study defines the vulnerable social groups in rural areas, and then surveys and analyzes their life conditions. Subsequently, methods and implications of the survey are to be explained, and the effective support policies for them will be proposed.

Method
The study reviews advanced researches and related laws in order to define the vulnerable social groups, and then designates petty elderly people, disabled people and multi-cultural families as the vulnerable social groups in rural areas. Also the study identifies support programs for them of the Korean central government and those of other countries in an attempt to draw implications.
Then, it analyzes related existing data to figure out their living status. The analysis is particularly focused on the comparison between urban and rural areas. In addition, this study conducts a survey to identify the vulnerable areas based on service accessibility, and compares vulnerable social groups who live in the vulnerable areas and those who live in areas with better accessibility.
Finally, it proposes policies to enhance quality of life of the vulnerable social groups in rural areas based on the research.

Results and Implications
The existing data that is analyzed in the study was collected by each survey that targeted each vulnerable group (elders, children, disabled people and so on). Also the data does not have sufficient sample size of people who live in rural areas. Therefore, the results of analysis of the existing data are not sufficient to grasp life conditions of complex vulnerable social groups that belong to more than two categories of the vulnerable social groups, such as disabled elderly and multi-cultural family. Hence, the study could not find out the vulnerable people’s life status in rural areas in detail.
The study figures out the vulnerable areas in rural areas and finds out the facts that 18.3% of rural population lives in service inaccessible areas. In addition, the proportion of the elderly in the vulnerable areas is beyond 30% and population density is only 1/100 of urban areas.
The results of our survey targeting vulnerable people living in the rural areas are as follows. The food cost made up the biggest part of the living expenses and 47.4% of the respondents said that they were food-poor. Also the proportion of people who have not joined the programs offered by public institutions during the passing year is only 26.5%.
A few implications are drawn through the study and it suggests possible policy alternatives. Firstly, it is necessary to survey the living conditions of the vulnerable social groups in rural areas consistently, and the data collected through the surveys should be accumulated. Then, the data could be a useful resource to develop meaningful policy issues. Secondly, it is essential to identify and collect best practices of various programs that have been implemented by a local government or civilians. The programs can be shared and policy makers could apply them when they establish a new policy plan for the vulnerable social groups in rural areas. Thirdly, direction of support programs for vulnerable social groups of the central government needs to be changed. Support programs need to be designed in consideration of the vulnerable areas and social groups’ reality.


Researchers: Song Miryung, Cho Mihyoung, Sim Jaehun, You Eunyoung and Kim Nari
Research period: 2015. 9. ~ 2016. 4.
E-mail address: mrsong@krei.re.kr