The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between self-esteem and depression in the elderly. The subjects were 74 elders living in homes for the old and senior's club at K city between Sep. 1 and Sep 30, 2000. The scale of self-esteem was developed by Rosenberg(1971) and the self-rating depression scale by Zung(1965). Using SPSS program, the collected data were analyzed by frequency, ANOVA, Duncan test, Pearson correlation coefficient, and multiple stepwise regression. 1. There were statistically significant differences in self respect by general characteristics such as age, religion, educational level, presence/absence of spouse, family style, ex-occupation, economic level, residence style, number of children, and pocket money. 2. There were statistically significant differences of depression by such characteristics as age, presence/absence of spouse, economic level, number of children. 3. The hypothesized negative relationship between self-esteem and depression was supported. Those old men with high self-esteem revealed low level of depression. 4. The most important predictor of self-esteem was educational level and 99% of the variance of self-esteem was explained by the model. The most important variable that affects depression was the number of children. The explained variance of depression was 56%. Therefore, the volunteers who serve the old might look for the alternative plan to increase their self-esteem, which is expected to decrease the level of depression.