• Korean Journal of Child Studies
• /
• v.23 no.3
• /
• pp.149-169
• /
• 2002

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.

• 한국사회정책
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.97-115
• /
• 2017

Unlike the past several decades when over 90% of unwed mothers chose to adopt their children, the number of never-married mothers who determine to raise their children for themselves has recently been increasing. However, many unwed mothers are still suffering from a diversity of problems including poverty, discrimination and biased stereotypes. To this end, this study aims to observe the development process of social policy for unwed mothers in Korea, with a special focus on the policy paradigm shift, and examine current social services for never-married mothers and their children. The results of the study shows the paradigm shift of social policy for unwed mothers occurred around the mid-2000's towards helping never-married mothers rear their children. However, social services for them have not kept pace with the paradigm change, which makes still very much hard for unwed mothers to raise their kids on their own. The study concludes with policy implications for improving social services for families headed by never-married mothers.

• Women's Health Nursing
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.331-341
• /
• 2004

Purpose: This study was conducted to explore the experience of unwed mothers, to describe the structure of the understanding of this experience for mothers and to explore nursing interventions for this situation. Methods: The subjects were 4 unwed mothers. The data was collected by in-depth interviews and participant observations from February 2004 to June 2004. Each person was interviewed 4-5times, taking about one and a half hours for each session. Data was analyzed by the phenomenological method suggested by Giorgi. Result: The understanding of the experience of unwed mothers resulted in "lightness of sexual cognition", "knowledge deficit of pregnancy", "suffering form pregnancy", "ambivalence of the situation", "appearance of mothering", "worrying about society's view". Conclusion: Sex education programs, a one-round, formal lecture-type education is presently dominant, so that education and training programs can be systematized at school and home. The difficult point for unwed mothers to endure is that society doesn't accept them; therefore, we have to change our point of view, and try to work out the problems.

• Women's Health Nursing
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.18-33
• /
• 2000

Social support may play an important role in relieving the feelings of guilt and shame of unwed mothers due to social insults and ignorance and in helping them from physical and psychological harm caused by them. In addition hope may encourage to seek out a new way of life. To determine if a relationship between perceived social support and hope exists in unwed mothers a descriptive study was conducted in the facilities providing basic data for promoting the health of unwed mothers. A demographic data sheet and two instruments were used : Indirectly Perceived Social Support Scale(IPSSS) developed by Park Jee Won (revised by Jo Moo Yong), Miller Hope Scale(adapted and revised by Lee Mi Ja), 95 unmarried mothers participated. The mean score of perceived social support was 3.17. Family support was the highest(3.47) and unwed father support was the lowest(2.53) in sub-scales. Material support(3.53) was the highest in family support. Emotional support(3.58) was the highest in friends support. Informational support(3.39) was the highest in facilities-concerned personal support. The mean score of hope was 3.41 : the satisfaction with self, others and life was the highest(3.82) and anticipation of future was the lowest(3.27) in sub-scale. There was not a statistically significant relationship between social support and hope. A statistically significant relationship was found between facilities-concerned personal support and hope. In conclusion, facilities-concerned positive encouragement for unwed mothers and a program promoting support and hope from families, friends and unwed father are necessary to promote hope and health in unwed mothers.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
• /
• v.44 no.2
• /
• pp.113-140
• /
• 2013

This study aimed to empirically test the causal model of stress-coping-adaptation for unwed mothers, which was built upon the Lazarus and Folkman's(1984) "Stress-Coping-Adaptation" model. In doing so researchers endeavored to provide practice implications as well as theoretical ones which would be helpful both to alleviate the unwed mothers' stress level, and to facilitate social adaptation of the unwed mothers. In order to fulfill research purpose data were collected from the national sample of 423 unwed mothers in Korea. The results showed that the overall goodness of the fit of the proposed causal model was excellent. Most of the path coefficients between social support, stress, coping, and adaption turned out to be statistically significant. The moderating effects of "pursuit of social support" between stress and adaption was not significant statistically, though. Implications and suggestions were provided to reduce the level of stress of the unwed mothers, and to facilitate the adaptation of the unwed mothers.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
• /
• v.33 no.5
• /
• pp.51-62
• /
• 1995

The purpose of this study is to prevent unwed mothers from the view of home-welfare. The main causes of unwed mothers should be reviewed part. The concrete reactions to solve this problem are possible by these studies even though this problem is very complicated related with the matters of individuals, families and our societies. The conclusion to prevent the unwed mothers is : (ⅰ) to establish the right sex morality through the education in families; (ⅱ) the society's role to share the responsibilities and care in single-parent families; (ⅲ) the right sex education in schools and society ; (ⅳ) the governmental aids to enlarge the number of consultation facilities and accomodation places for youths and women. Besides these attempts, the unwed mothers should be aware of the importance and responsibilities of their own and the baby's lives. The responsibility of society also should be focused from the point of family welfare.

• Korean Journal of Family Social Work
• /
• no.56
• /
• pp.169-196
• /
• 2017

Korean unwed mothers and their families often experience discriminatory and unfair treatment in their everyday lives. However, there has been little research examining discrimination against unwed mothers and its effects on these women's lives. Therefore, further studies are needed to identify and assess types and degree of discrimination against unwed mothers. This study aims to investigate and develop a reliable and valid measurement scale of experiences of discrimination for Korean unwed mothers. For developing the scale, the researchers constructed a concept and sub factors, and the pre-scale of 75 items of discrimination experiences of unwed mothers by conducting a literature review and focus groups interviews, Validity and reliability of the scale were tested by carrying out an item quality analysis, a exploratory factor analysis, a correlation analysis, a criterion validity test and a reliability analysis, The scale of 21 items was constructed with three dimensions. This study is significant that it provides the scale of discrimination for Korea unwed mothers with high reliability and validity to identify and verify types and degree of discrimination experiences of unwed mothers.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
• /
• v.40 no.4
• /
• pp.13-25
• /
• 2002

The objective of this study was to develop and verify the effectiveness of the career education program for unwed mothers to facilitate to consider their career plan and career orientation. The program of this study was based on the Super's developmental theory. The program was done twice a week totally 8 times. The subject of the program is unwed mothers from 16 to 25 years old. One-group pretest-posttest design was held. The quantitative and qualitative researches were carried out. In quantitative research, the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was done with SPSS Window 10.0 to evaluate the effectiveness of the career education program. In qualitative research, the content of discussion in the course of group process, investigation, and the materials which were made from the group members were analysed to the objects of program. The results of this study was proven to develop career maturity, career decision level, and career identity. Finally, the meanings of this consequences were discussed.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.16 no.8
• /
• pp.404-418
• /
• 2016

This study aimed to explore negative experiences of unwed mothers in interaction with medical professionals, government officials and nursery teachers who have negative stereotypes about the unwed mothers and to seek ways of improving awareness and attitudes of the professionals. Researchers conducted individual and focus groups interviews with 15 unwed mothers. The results showed that unwed mothers experienced the violation of their maternal and privacy rights and inhospitable services in the interaction with medical professionals. They also had similar experiences with government officials who often had overbearing and discriminatory attitudes toward these mothers, and hardly received useful information. Last, unwed mothers had deep concerns about possibilities and experiences of discrimination against their children by nursery teachers and other parents in day care centers. In conclusion, this study discussed ways of improving awareness and attitudes toward unwed mothers through various medias and supplementary educations.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
• /
• v.40 no.6
• /
• pp.39-51
• /
• 2002

Pregnancies of unmarried women are one of the most serious sex problems because they can negatively affect the lives and development of both unwed mothers and their extramarital children. The number of unwed adolescent mothers is growing recently, extending the seriousness of the problem. This study was conducted to explore the ego-state, life position and family systems that may cause unmarried pregnancy. The data obtained from the structured questionnaire survey of 79 unmarried adolescent mothers and 82 female adolescents were analyzed in terms of frequency and t-test using the SPSS WIN 8.0 program. The results were as follows: 1. Ego-state elements of unmarried adolescent mothers were distributed evenly in general and this falls under the All B(BBBBB) type of ego-gram, just like the adolescents. As for the subject adolescent mothers, CP was the lowest among the 5 egos. 2. As to the life position, the position of "I′m OK, You′re OK"was the highest for both groups, with slight differences. 3. With regard to the family system types sorted by the combination of family cohesion and family adaptability levels, both the adolescent. mothers and adolescents tended to perceive their families as somewhat-balanced or balanced families. 4. While the two groups of adolescent mothers and adolescents showed, on the whole, the same types for all the indicators like above, statistically significant differences were found in more detailed elements.