Characteristics of Teenage Unwed Mothers in Korea

한국 10대 미혼모의 특성에 관한 연구

The focus of this research was to understand the socio-demographic characteristics, pregnancy conditions, social support, and future plan of teenage unwed mothers in Korea. Among the unwed mother, the teenage group was a higher percentage (53.7%) than the over-twenties group (46.3%). In the distribution of teenage unwed mothers, the major part, 94.6%, was in the 16- to 17- year-old age range, and 5.4% were under 15 years of age. This indicates that the age of unwed mothers is getting lower. Most teenage unwed mothers were from intact(72.3%) and/or low-class(62.3%) families. A significant percentage (37.7%)was from middle- and upper-middle class families, signifying that teenage pregnancy is not a problem only of disadvantaged and lower class families. The education of one-third of the teenage unwed mothers in this study was only up to first year of middle school(7th grade), indicating that pregnancy may be a reason they dropped out of school.