• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.259-277
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• 2008

Traditional familism and family value is known as the value that most Koreans share with. Strong family solidarity and family-centered perception among Koreans influences other social values and ideology. Under the family value, caring for family members is family responsibility instead of government responsibility. Previous studies argued that the family value played a role to impede the development of family policy in Korea. The aim of this study was to explore a relation between the family value and the needs for care-support family policy. This study investigated how the family value were related to the specific needs for care-support family policy. The data were drawn from the Seoul Families Survey conducted on 2006 by Seoul Women and Family Foundation. The survey data consisted of 2,500 married males and females living in Seoul. The statistical techniques used for analysis were frequencies, means, t-test, ANOVA, crosstabs, multiple regression models, and multinomial logit models. The major findings of this study were as followings. First, while the traditional familism appeared to be held at a certain level, the general attitudes towards cohabitation, divorce, and single-parent family seemed to be less traditional. Second, the familism was found to be partly associated with the needs for the care-support family policy. The respondents who had less traditional value on arriage and child-rearing showed the higher level of needs for daycare center. This finding implied that nontraditional attitudes were related to the needs for an alternative care service such as caring through facilities rather than to the needs for supportive or complementary services. Lastly, the respondents who had higher level of traditional familism showed a higher preference for direct economic service (supportive service) than for other types of service in child care. And the less traditional their attitudes towards marriage and child-rearing, the more likely they are to prefer flexible child care services and programs to other types of child care services. These results implied that the family value was partly influential to family policy. However, it is worthy to note that the family value was related to family policy preference rather than to family policy needs. In other words, traditional family value appeared to influence the types of family policy rather than the level of needs for family policy.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.375-383
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• 2013

The aim of this study is to explore fathers' own expectations and experiences of fatherhood along with their views of what it meant to be a 'good' father. Qualitative methodologies were used; semi-structured in-depth interviews with 10 dual-earner fathers with young children. Interviewees overwhelmingly welcomed the opportunities offered to them by the new fatherhood model and supported a perceived cultural shift towards men and fathers being involved in, rather than detached from, family life. However tension and difficulty in living the ideal were also reported: gaps between perceptions and behaviors; struggle for traditional breadwinning role and caring; conflicts between selflessness and career and uninvolved in family decisions. Political and practical considerations are discussed, and the implications of this study for future research are identified.