• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.210-217
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• 2020

This paper analyzes the factors influencing the childbirth intention of married women with the goal of analyzing whether times of spouses' housework, marital satisfaction, values of children and traditional gender role, and social services related to the reduction of low fertility contribute to women's intention to give birth. The respondents of the research were 1,000 married women, and the research was conducted with 482 women of childbirth intention. The findings are as follows. Age of sociodemographic factors has an influence on the childbirth intention. Related to family's character, factors influencing childbirth intention are number of children, times of spouses' housework, and marital satisfaction. In addition, emotional and instrumental values of children, number of recognized public services for reduction of low fertility. In other words, the more women share housework with spouses and satisfy their marital life, the more childbirth intention of women is increased. In order to improve childbirth intention, changes of perception of gender role and sharing housework, reinforcement of social system for work and family compatibility that convert changes of perception into action, advanced marital relationship programs, extensive support for subfertility and a huge build-up of social services related to reduction of low fertility need to be provided.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.61 no.4
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• pp.85-108
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• 2009

The quickening pace of international migration in the last twenty years brought fundamental demographic and social changes to the Korean society. Increasing number of marriage-based immigrant families imposes new challenges on social work community; however, the social work community has not been equipped with necessary practice models, sets of skills and professionals with cultural competency. This study aims to explore an integrative framework of social work practice with this client group. Research foci include the profile of marriage-based immigrant families in Korea, available social services at the time, challenges and issues they face, the compatibility of the empowerment based social work practice, and micro/mezzo/macro level concerns that arise for the effective service provision. Challenges among marriage-based immigrant families are converged into personal/familial, community related, and larger social-cultural issues. Empowerment is a multi-dimensional social process to help people gain control over their lives; a process that fosters power in people, for use in their lives, their communities and in their society. Empowerment based social work practice can be the most competent framework for working with multi-cultural families considering their multi-faceted acculturation issues while they navigate thru Korean society. Issues of educating and training of culturally competent social workers are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.59-71
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• 2019

Korea's average annual working hours are among the highest in the OECD. Such long-term work has been a factor that reduces the quality of life by discouraging workers' productivity and interrupting the compatibility of work and family, prompting the government to encourage flexible work systems, such as increasing part-time jobs, but a lack of quality part-time jobs. Part-time work enables flexible labor for workers, but at the same time, workers will involuntarily opt for part-time work as they have poor working conditions and negative social views. In this respect, the effect of the working type on an individual's life is expected to be different. In addition, for women, gender gaps exist in the labor market and the impact of part-time work on life satisfaction is expected to differ from men in terms of working and family alike. Using the data from the 2017 "Seoul Survey Urban Policy Indicator Survey", the ordered logistic regression model was used to analyze the cross-effect of working type and sex on satisfaction. The analysis of the study showed that when other factors were controlled, life satisfaction was high in the order of fulltime female, full-time male, part-time female, and part-time male. In addition, further analysis shows that the parttime female workers have the highest probability of choosing low life satisfaction, while the probability of choosing high life satisfaction is the lowest, and full-time male workers have the lowest probability of choosing low life satisfaction, while the highest probability of choosing high life satisfaction is the highest.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.220-229
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• 2021

Purpose: The world saw a shift into a new society consequent to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which made home quarantine mandatory for a person in close contact with those who tested positive. For children, however, home quarantine was not limited only to themselves but parents, especially mothers were involved and required to quarantine. This qualitative study aims to explore and understand mothers' experience and their related psychosocial issues while caring for their school-aged children in Korea, who had to home quarantine after coming in close contact with COVID-19 positive individuals. Methods: Data were collected from October 2020 to January 2021 via in-depth, semi-structured interviews with nine mothers of children who had to home quarantine. Interviews were conducted face-to-face in an independent space near the participant's home or workplace (n=5) or via online platforms or telephone (n=4). The data were analyzed using thematic analysis through several iterative team meetings. Results: Thematic analysis revealed the following four themes: "Unable to be relieved due to uncertain situations surrounding me," "Blame and hurt toward me, others, and one another," "Pulling myself together for my children in my broken daily life," and "Changes in the meaning of life amid COVID-19." Conclusion: The narratives show that mothers experienced psychosocial difficulties while caring for their children during home quarantine. It is necessary to reduce the social stigma toward individuals in home quarantine and establish policies to ensure work-family compatibility for such mothers.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.29-42
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• 2021

As the low fertility intensifies in Korea, this study investigated fundamental differences between the government's low fertility policy and public perception of it. To this end, we selected four times 'Aging Society and Population Policy' documents and news comments for two weeks immediately after announcement of the third and fourth Policy as analysis targets. Then we conducted word frequency analysis, co-occurrence analysis and CONCOR analysis. As a result of analyses, first, direct childcare support during the first and second periods, and a social structural approach during third and fourth periods were noticeable. Second, it was revealed that both policies and comments aim for the work-family compatibility in 'parenting'. Lastly it was showed public interest in environment of raising children and the critical mind to effectiveness of the policy. This study is meaningful in that it confirmed the public perception using big data analysis, and it will help improve the direction for the future low fertility policy.

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