Technical solutions are being presented for the healthcare and welfare of the aging population. One example is Hyodol, a robot developed for older adults living alone in South Korea. By offering various services such as religious chanting, dementia-prevention quizzes, and daily medication reminders, Hyodol is expected to serve as a companion for lonely older adults. This paper analyzes how the robotic care program for older adults is operating within the Korean public welfare system. Based on our fieldwork at regional welfare institutions and older adults’ homes, we show that the robots along with its monitoring system, older adults, institutional managers, caregivers, company staff, and family are forming what we call a “robotic multi-care network.” Within this network, the elderly users cultivate their own ways of building relationships with the robot, some perceiving it as a “grandchild” while others view it as a medium to connect with caregivers. The introduction of the care robot at the welfare institutions does not make their elderly care work unmanned, nor does the robot substitute for human caregivers. Instead, it displaces and redistributes the caregivers’ tasks and responsibilities, leading to multiple eldercare practices—tactile, digital, proximate, remote.
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Declining birth rates and aging populations are a global problem, but it is more serious in South Korea than in any other country. In 2020, South Korea recorded the lowest fertility rate among the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries for seven consecutive years. There were only 0.84 births per woman, a rate much lower than those of its neighbors Japan (1.33) and China (1.70) (OECD Citation2022).Footnote1 In this rapidly aging population, an increasing number of older adults are living alone. In 2020, 35.1% of the elderly population was reported as one-person households (Yonhap Citation2021). South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) estimates that the number of older adults living alone will more than double by 2035 (Ministry of Health and Welfare Citation2018: 1). These demographic trends raise urgent questions about elderly care: How should older adults living alone be taken care of? Are there enough people for this work of caring?
Against this backdrop, robots and artificial intelligence technologies have emerged as useful measures to respond to the problem of elderly care in an aging society. In recent years, the “AgeTech” industry has expanded considerably, backed by the Korean government’s decade-long “robotizing” policy. Since the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (now renamed the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, MOTIE) announced the “Robot Future Strategy” in 2012, the government has allocated substantial funding to propel the nation’s advancement in robotics. Some part of this funding has gone to local municipalities and healthcare or welfare institutions to purchase robotic products for socially disadvantaged people, including the elderly and caregivers.
