• 한국노년학
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.1147-1164
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• 2008

There has been a sharp increase in the number of grandmothers raising grandchildren in contemporary Korean society. However, little is known about the complexity of the experiences of the custodial grandparenting. Most of the studies mainly examined burden/cost and have paid little attention to the positive aspects of custodial grandparenting. In order to overcome this limitation of previous research, this study aims 1) to examine not only the costs but also the rewards of custodial grandparenting and to explore related factors, 2) to develop the typology based on relative rewards-burden perception of grandmothers about custodial grandparenting and explore the group differences. The data were gathered from 449 grandmothers raising their grandchildren as a primary caregiver, using a structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation, hierarchical multiple regression and ANOVA, with SPSS WIN 12.0 program. Main findings are as follows: First, custodial grandmothers report not only care-giving burden such as physical burnout and economic burden but also various rewards such as joy of watching their grandchildren grow and feeling good about themselves to be a help with their adult children, i.e. grandchildren's father or mother. Second, factors related to the level of perceived cost of grandparenting are different from the factors affecting the positive aspects of grandparenting. Third, results of the two by two cross-tab analysis based on the level of rewards and burden show that about 32 percent of the grandparents belong to Type II group(high rewards-low cost). This result is quite contrary to the assumption of previous research focusing mostly on cost and burden of custodial grandparenting. Fourth, four groups were different in terms of grandmother & grandchildren's characteristics. Implications of these results are discussed.