본 연구는 1인 가구를 새로운 소비자정책의 대상 관점에서 소비생활 수준을 파악하고, 인구사회학적 특성과 1인 가구 유형에따른 차이를 분석하여 1인 가구 시대의 도래에 따른 미래 소비자정책 방향을 제시하는데 목적이 있다. 이를 위해 1인 가구를대상으로 2015년에 조사된 가계지출 부담비용, 소비자문제 경험수준, 소비생활 문제, 필요정책, 소비생활 만족도 데이터(2015년본조사 수행)를 분석하였다. 분석결과, 첫째, 1인 가구의 가계지출 부담비용은 주생활비, 식생활비, 금융비 순으로 나타났으며, 높은 부담을 느끼는정책대상을 중심으로 한 제도적 지원이 이루어져야 한다. 둘째, 1인 가구의 소비자문제 경험수준은 多이용 시장(식료품, 택배서비스, 외식서비스 시장)에서 소비자문제 경험율 및 경험 횟수도 높게 나옴에 따라 해당 시장을 중심으로 관련 제도를 정비할필요가 있다. 또한, 여성이 남성보다 소비자문제 경험횟수가 많고, 식료품과 택배서비스 시장에서 통계적으로 유의미한 차이를보임에 따라 개별 시장을 중심으로 1인 가구 특성에 따른 개선방안이 필요하다. 셋째, 1인 가구의 소비생활 문제는 식생활거래보다주생활거래에서 더 큰 문제를 느끼는 것으로 나타났고, 여성이 남성에 비해 취소환급, 정보이해에서 문제 정도가 높고, 연령은전반적으로 나이대가 젊을수록, 거주지는 대도시 거주자, 1인 가구 생활기간이 짧을수록 상대적으로 문제 정도가 높았다. 이러한결과는 소비생활 분야별 1인 가구의 인구사회학적 특성과 구매단계에 따른 차별화가 필요함을 보여준다. 넷째, 1인 가구필요정책은 소형주택 확대공급이 과반을 넘는 비중으로, 여성, 30대, 1인 가구 생활기간이 10년 이상에서 정책수요가 높게나타났다. 소형주택 확대공급은 직접적인 소비자정책 영역은 아니나 관련된 주택거래, 금융거래, 주택안전 및 품질, 소형생활용품문제 등 파생된 소비자 영역이 다양하기에 이에 대한 맞춤형 소비자교육, 사전 정보제공 등 다양한 접근전략이 구사될 필요가있다. 다섯째, 1인 가구의 소비생활에 대한 만족도는 평균 보통수준으로, 자발적 1인 가구 유형이 높게 나타남에 따라 경제적능력과 함께 1인 가구로서 삶의 변화가 가져오는 문제에 대해 충분한 대응력을 갖출 수 있는 여러 조건이 전제되어야 1인 가구소비생활에 대한 만족도도 높아짐을 알 수 있다. 본 연구는 아직까지 국내 1인 가구를 대상으로 소비자문제 및 정책을 분석한 선행연구가 없는 상황에서, 해당 결과를 토대로소비자정책 이해관계자 및 관련 연구자들에게 유용한 기초자료를 제공했다는 점에 의의가 있다.

This study has been conducted to understand the level of consumption life from the perspective of establishing consumer policies, especially for single-person family, and to analyze demographic and social characteristics and differences among different types of one-person households, thereby suggesting a direction of future consumer policies in this era where single-member family is emerging as a strong trend. To this end, based on the survey results conducted in 2015, overall expenditure of single-person households, their level of experiencing consumer problems, issues related to their consumption life, necessary consumer policies for them, and their consumption life satisfaction level have been analyzed. The results of analysis can be summarized as follows: First, the biggest burden of household expenditure held by one-person households is housing, followed by food and financial costs, which indicates the need to provide more systematic support for these policy objects. Second, the level of experiencing consumer problems by single-member households tend to be higher with food products, delivery service, and eatery services which they use very frequently. Since these items showed not just higher percentage but also higher number of experiencing consumer problems, it looks like the relevant systems need to be improved quickly. Also, women were more likely to experience consumer issues than their male counterparts, and there was a statistically significant differences between men and women in terms of their experiences of consumer problems with food products and delivery markets. These demonstrates the fact that some improvement measures need to be implemented based on the characteristics of one-person households in each individual market. Third, the extent of consumption life issues experienced by one-family households seems bigger in their housing life than in their dietary life. Also, women tend to go through more problems related to cancellation and refund of their transactions, and more problems understanding the consumption information. Also, people with younger ages, and those who live in larger cities, and those who have shorter period of one-person family life seemed to experience more problems than the others. These results show that there needs to be differentiated consumer policies for single-person households based on their demographic and social characteristics in each consumption life area and each different purchase stage. Fourth, consumer policies for one-person family seem to be required more for women, people in their 30s, and those who had more than 10 years of single-family household life than others. As the proportion of supplying small-sized houses exceeds the half of total house supply, it also seems to require consumer policies. Although the expanded supply of small-sized houses does not belong to direct consumer policy area, since it involves a number of derived areas, still a variety of approaches and strategies including tailored consumer education, provision of information in advance, and overarching national campaign need to be put in place in such areas as housing trades, financial transactions, housing safety and quality, and small sized life items. Fifth, overall consumption life satisfaction of one-person family was in the normal range on average. The result of analysis showed that the higher the proportion of voluntary single-member household, the higher the satisfaction level of single-member households, but only when they have economic capabilities and sufficient ability to deal with various problems that come from their life-style change to single-member family. Since there has been no preceding studies conducted for single-person family in Korea on consumer problems and policies so far, this study is meaningful in that it provides useful basic information for stakeholders and researchers of consumer policies based on these analysis results.

One-person household, voluntary/non-voluntary type, level of consumption life, consumer issues, consumer policy