우리나라 인구의 연령구조변화가 수산물의 소비에 미치는 영향

Abstract

The demographic features have been proposed as an important factor for determining the quantity and quality of food consumption. The increase in population brings about the rise of food consumption, and the change of age groups leads to the change of food consumption pattern despite the same population scale. Not only consumption but also preference for food changes along with age. Therefore, the change of age groups in population becomes a crucial variable in explaining the changing food demand. When the food consumption pattern changes in quantity, the intake of carbohydrate foods gets reduced, whereas the consumption of protein and fatty food tend to increase. The purpose of this study lies in analyzing the impact of price, income and age structure on the change in general food consumption patterns and their impact on sea food demands. The demand functions of fish, shellfish, sea weeds, rice, and livestock meat were estimated by auto/ridge regressions. The results showed that all own price elasticities have negative values, which are consistent with economic theories. Income elasticities except for shellfish turned out to be positive. Both of the price elasticity and the income elasticity of rice appeared to be lower than those of seafood and meat. The population elasticities of fish by different ages appeared to be positive in the range of 40~59 and above 60, while the shellfish and seaweed elasticities were positive in above 60. This implies that the increase of population in the relevant age range influenced the increase of the amount of food consumption. As seen in the meat demand, it tended to increase in all age ranges, but the rice demand showed a decrease for the data period in the range of 40~59 but an increase in above 60. The overall research results suggest that seafood is preferred by the elderly group population over other age population. With the increasing number of the elderly, the change of sea food and agricultural food consumption pattern appears to tends to be made elderly group-oriented. In developing a seafood production and supply, it seems crucial to make a accurate forecast for the food seafood demand, considering the population factors. This research used only age group data because of very limited information on other population characteristics such as income, region, education and so on, that may have an important influence on the demand for seafood. Thus, such comprehensive analysis of including such demographic factors is left for further research in the future.