• Korea journal of population studies
• /
• v.33 no.1
• /
• pp.103-131
• /
• 2010

This study observes how the conjugal sharing of the roles such as breadwinning, housework/childcare, and leisure activities affects wives' marital satisfaction, and how the relationships among the considered variables are similar or different across age categories. Two dependent variables, the relationship satisfaction and the marital happiness, are measured and estimated as the concept of the marital satisfaction. Analysed is the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families 2008 collected by Korean Women's Development Institute. Among women in the ages of 30s-50s, full-time housewives with the breadwinning husbands feel happier with their marriage than the wives in dual career families, and those in dual career families are happier than the breadwinning women with the househusbands. Among the women in their 40s, the highest relationship satisfaction is reported by the those of the dual career families. Wives in their 30s prefer equal division of familywork in explaining the relationship satisfaction, while wives in the age of 40s and 50s show only the effect of reducing wives' portion. The co-spousal leisure activity is consistently significant in its positive relationship with the marital satisfaction across the age categories. There is a general tendency that the marital satisfaction is the highest in the youngest age bracket and the lowest in the oldest. For managing better marriages, individual efforts of both spouses as well as social support are required.