• Korea journal of population studies
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.113-136
• /
• 2010

Low fertility has become quite commonplace worldwide, and Europe has experienced below replacement fertility for several decades. In addition, lowest-low fertility, defined as period total fertility rate below 1.3, has rapidly spread in Europe during the 1990s and is likely to expand further. After the turn of century, lowest-low fertility started spreading in Eastern Asia. Korea's TFR of 1.19 in 2008 is lower than most European countries, although it is higher than the Hongkong(1.02) and Taiwan(1.09). The purpose of this paper is to examine the socioeconomic determinants of lowest-low fertility in Korea. In doing so, this paper discusses the effects of female labour force participation, labour instability on family formation and fertility. The data includes female labour force participation rate, unemployment rate, age at first marriage, and total fertility rate from 1980 to 2008. First, the economic recession hindered young people's economic independence and propensity to marry. Married couples were also depressed with uncertainty toward the future and avoided to have children. Second, the growth in female labor force participation had a negative impact on fertility, under the low level of compatibility between women's work and childrearing. Moreover, this paper argues that the rising cost of children including public and private educational costs is thought to be the main reason of the recent low fertility in Korea. Policy implications and some comments on population policies are also presented in the final section.

• Korea journal of population studies
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.85-111
• /
• 2010

South Korea has experienced a rapid fertility decline and notable mortality improvement. As the drop in TFR was quicker and greater in terms of tempo and magnitude, it cast a new challenge of population projection - how to improve the forecasting accuracy in the country with a super-low fertility pattern. This study begin with the current status of the national population projection as implemented by Statistics Korea by comparing the 2009 interim projection with the 2006 official national population projection. Secondly, this study compare the population projection system including projection agencies, projection horizons, projection intervals, the number of projection scenarios, and the number of assumptions on fertility, mortality and international migration among super-low fertility countries. Thirdly we illustrate a stochastic population projection for Korea by transforming the population rates into one parameter series. Finally we describe the future challenges of the national population projection, and propose the projection scenarios for the 2011 official population projection. To enhance the accuracy, we suggest that Statistics Korea should update population projections more frequently or distinguish them into short-term and long-term projections. Adding more than four projection scenarios including additional types of "low-variant"fertility could show a variety of future changes. We also expect Statistics Korea topay more attention to the determination of a base population that should include both national and non-national populations. Finally we hope that Statistics Korea will find a wise way to incorporate the ideas underlying the system of stochastic population projection as part of the official national population projection.

• Korea journal of population studies
• /
• v.31 no.1
• /
• pp.127-146
• /
• 2008

Over the past four decades reproductive behavior has changed slowly in much of the African countries. The average total fertility rate has fallen from six or more to near five today. Between 1960 and 2000 the largest fertility decline occurred in such Northern African countries as Algeria, Libya, and Morocco. The mortality rate has decreased in most African countries. The purpose of this study is to review the pattern of demographic transition in African countries. At first, this study focuses on the fertility transition. In Africa, the total fertility rate has decreased from 6.59 to 4.85 between 1960 and 2000. The mortality rate has also decreased in most of African countries. It is also interesting to find that there is a clear difference among African countries. In terms of infant mortality rate, Libya shows the lowest rate(17), while Mali and Somalia remain still high rate(142 and 133, respectively). This study tests a path model in which infant mortality rate acts as an intermediate variable between three socioeconomic variables and the fertility rate. The findings of this paper substantiate some of our hypotheses on the interrelationships among socioeconomic variables, infant mortality rate, and fertility rate. The result also shows the indirect effects of socioeconomic variables on fertility rate via infant mortality.

• Korea journal of population studies
• /
• v.31 no.1
• /
• pp.147-164
• /
• 2008

The goal of this study was to examine the economic and cultural factors that influenced the intention of having a second child. In particular, this study intended to examine whether the factors related to the intention of having a child differed by the employment status of married women. The data for this study were drawn from the National Survey on the Trend of Marriage and Birth. This survey was conducted in 2005 by Korean Institute for Health and Social Affairs. The sample consisted of 690 married women who had one child(282 employed and 408 unemployed). The data were analyzed by logistic regression with SAS 9.1 program. The results showed that the employed women's intention of having a second child was affected by the husband's hours of housework, having a own mother(child's grandmother) and the perception of value of child. The employed women's intention of having a second child was affected by the perception of emotional value of child, and the sex of the first child. In sum, there were differences between the employed women and the unemployed women in the variables affecting the intention of having a second child. Perception of value of child was found important for both the employed and the unemployed women. Besides husband's hours of housework, having a mother and the needs for public support about child birth and rearing were found significant for the employed women. For the unemployed women, the costs of child care/education and the sex of the first child were found significant. The findings of this study suggested that different policy interventions be developed to satisfy the needs of the employed women and the unemployed women.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.13 no.8
• /
• pp.3427-3435
• /
• 2012

Beginning with retirement in 2010 of the leading group of baby boomer generation born in 1955, baby boomers are starting to retire from work in full-scale. Since retirement of baby boomers refers to increase in the senior class with longer life expectancies caused by development of medical technologies, enhancement of living standards, and improvement of surrounding environments, annually decreasing birthrate is further accelerating entry of our society into an aged society. Accordingly to examine baby boomer generation's preparation for retirement in relation to career self-efficacy, first, difference in retirement preparation according to mean monthly income and current occupation was analyzed. Second, the effect of career self-efficacy on retirement preparation was studied. The survey for this study was conducted for one month between January 17 and February 16, 2012 in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Gangwon, Chungnam, Gyeongnam, Jeonnam, and Jeju. 500 surveys were distributed to baby boomer generations through direct visit and mail, among which 443 responses were returned. 400 effective responses were selected as subjects of the study. As a result, preparation for retirement according to mean monthly income was verified to be significant in terms of economic and physical factors. Significant results were shown in all factors including economic, physical and social factors for retirement preparation according to current occupation. Career self-efficacy had greatest influence of 58% on retirement preparation with economic factors. It also influenced all factors including self assessment, objective setting, occupational information, and problem solving.

• Korean Journal of Family Social Work
• /
• no.55
• /
• pp.129-156
• /
• 2017

The study was conducted to identify factors that affect the first childbearing decisions among married working women in South Korea and thereby to gain insight into effective ways to improve relatively low fertility and unfavorable workplace conditions for women of childbearing age. This study used the merged data(1st-5th waves) from Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families (KLoWF), which were measured by the Korean Women's Development Institute. With 1,020 married business women, cross tab and binary logistic regression were conducted to determine which factors were significantly associated with the first childbearing decisions.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.407-416
• /
• 2019

This study is about a Customized Nursery School where working women can support work - life balance and a reduction in retirement or turnover. The research method is to identify the current status of Customized Nursery services and to recognize the recognition and need of the operation of Customized Nursery School. The importance of securing skilled nurses and preventing them from changing their jobs for the health and safety of people cannot be emphasized enough. A Customized Nursery School must be opened to reduce the retirement or change of jobs of working women nurses and to provide care for continuous work in three shifts from 365days to support the balance between the working mother and family. It is considered that nurses will put their children in relief when using retired nurses who have the ability to work 24hour rotation in a Customized Nursery School and when a Customized Nursery School be ran suited for the condition and demand of working women nurses, it is expected to reduce retirement and the change of jobs, also to give positive effect on marrige and family planning which would make improvement in low birthrate. To activate the Customized Nursery School, Creating a secure learning environment and qualification of educators great effort should be put. A program curriculum based on 'basic life and habits' should be the center of education. Continuous management and effort will need to be placed in continuous development of educators.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
• /
• v.35 no.1
• /
• pp.59-72
• /
• 2019

This study focused on low fertility and population decline which threaten national competitiveness. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis was attempted on the impact of housing characteristics and residential area characteristics of newlyweds on their birth plan. To this end, the hierarchical linear model(HLM) was implemented using '2016 Korea Newlyweds' Housing Survey' data. The main findings of this study are as follows. First, the birth plan of newlyweds is affected not only by housing characteristics, but also residential area characteristics such as the average housing price, average private education expenses and the number of local child centers. Second, the use of housing loans and the housing tenure have an interaction effect with the average housing price and the number of local child centers among the residential area characteristics. In other words, the use of housing loans has a negative effect on the birth plan if the housing price is high in the area, and being renter household has a positive effect on the birth plan if the number of local child centers is high in the area. These findings suggest that governmental effort to raise the birthrate of newlyweds should take into account their housing characteristics as wells as residential area characteristics.

• Journal of Cadastre & Land InformatiX
• /
• v.49 no.1
• /
• pp.123-144
• /
• 2019

The purpose of this study is to grasp factors the increasing population growth rate of the region through the regional and housing market characteristics. This paper has used multiple regression as the dependent variable (average of the population growth rate of 85cities during the last five years) and the independent variables analyzed the regional and housing market characteristics on the average. The results of the analysis, The regional and housing market variables that have had a significant impact on the regional population growth rate over the last five years are birth rate, employment rate, production available population growth rate, apartment rate, resale rights rate, and apartment turnover rate and the number of businesses per thousand and has decreased. In other words, The regions where the population increased by region for the last five years were the ones with the transfer of public institutions (innovation cities) and land development among the Seoul metropolitan area and non-Seoul metropolitan area excluding Seoul and metropolitan cities. The results of this study is intentional to suggest Policy point of view for the balanced regional development presented at the government level for other the metropolitan area, such as the small and medium cities that are undergoing population decline.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.203-208
• /
• 2022

The U.K. during the war on terrorism, the number of military serviceable resources decreased and the volunteer recruitment rate decreased due to the decline in the birth rate, but faced a situation in which complex security threats from IS and Russia gradually increased. As one of the measures to overcome these challenges, the British military promoted a policy to break down existing social conservatism and assign female personnel to close combat positions. The British military formed a consensus within the military through discovery of female military use cases, longitudinal studies, and combat experiments, and then conducted strategic communication to form a social consensus and collect public opinions. In addition, to improve the reliability of the policy, established a combat fitness evaluation system that any combatant who performs close combat should pass. In Korea, amid accelerating competition for hegemony between the U.S. and China, security threats are increasing due to a decrease in military serviceable resources caused by population cliffs. Therefore, the case of the British military will give us considerable implications while also helping to provide the direction necessary for establishing future women's workforce policies.