• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.545-559
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• 2016

This study examined the work-family compatibility experience of married nurses. The participants of this research were 7 registered nurses who are on the expanding stage of their family life cycle. Data were collected by individual in-depth interviews from June 10 to November 30, 2015 and analyzed using phenomenological methodology by Colaizzi (1978). The results showed that the work-family compatibility experience of married nurses may be categorized into 4 categories, 'the reality of work and parenting', 'external and internal conflicts about the compatibility of work and parenting', 'compromise with reality for solving the difficulty of compatibility', 'growing desire and efforts for compatibility', and may be identified with 12 theme clusters and 29 themes. The worthiness as a professional woman and happiness in child rearing are the driving force of the compatibility of work and family in married nurses. Therefore, the continued support of government policies and family is important for married nurses to maintain work and family balance.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.338-344
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• 2015

Background: The present study aims to investigate job stressors and stress relievers for Korean emotional laborers, specifically focusing on the effects of work conditions and emotional labor properties. Emotional laborers are asked to hide or distort their real emotions in their interaction with clients. They are exposed to high levels of stress in the emotional labor process, which leads to serious mental health risks including burnout, depression, and even suicide impulse. Exploring job stressors and relieving factors would be the first step in seeking alternatives to protect emotional laborers from those mental health risks. Methods: Using the third wave data of Korean Working Conditions Survey, logistic regression analysis was conducted for two purposes: to examine the relations of emotional labor and stress, and to find out job stressors and relievers for emotional laborers. Results: The chances of stress arousal are 3.5 times higher for emotional laborers; emotional laborers experience double risk-burden for stress arousal. In addition to general job stressors, emotional laborers need to bear burdens related to emotional labor properties. The effect of social support at the workplace is not significant for stress relief, unlike common assumptions, whereas subjective satisfaction (wage satisfaction and work-life balance) is proven to have relieving effects on emotional laborers' job stress. Conclusion: From the results, the importance of a balanced understanding of emotional labor for establishing effective policies for emotional laborer protection is stressed.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.165-186
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• 2012

Studies on time-use have generally concentrated on the amount of time used by each member of a household in Korea. The quality of family relationships could be associated with the amount and types of interactions between family members. This study examined the time that adults spend with their family members on various activities. The purpose of this study is to explore a typology of family time and investigate the characteristics of each type. The data source was the 2009 Time-Use Survey conducted by the Korean National Statistics Office. The people involved in each activity were surveyed for the first time in the 2009 survey in Korea. The data from this study included 10,902 diaries that were filled on weekdays by married adults from ages 20 to 59 years. Data from rural households were excluded. Time use was divided into three categories: family meals, household work and family leisure time. These activities were analyzed using t-test, chi-square analysis and cluster analysis. Family time was classified into four types based on three categories. The four types were named "leisure sharing", "household work sharing", "overall sharing" and "non-sharing". The most common type was non-sharing. The characteristics of each type depended on gender and paid work time. Based on these results, family and labor policies should be developed to increase the work-life balance. Policies that focus on men over 40 years are especially recommended.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.145-164
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• 2013

This study analyzed qualitative data to examine the attitude toward the conditions of and the barriers to the work- family balance among unmarried workers. The data was drawn from 5 focus groups consisting of 4 workers each. The 20 participants, aged 21 through 38, were interviewed in mini groups composed of 2 male workers and 2 female workers each. The research depicts four main themes about their work-family balance: the image of a dual-earner family, women's market labor, housework, and the ideal conditions of a dual-earner family. This research concluded that unmarried workers desperately want to be part of a dual earning family for economic survival. However, they also know that it would be very difficult to make ends meet and to live as dual-earner families because of the lack of a proper social support system. However, most of them believe that they must solve these problems on their own, and they do not expect to receive help from systematic public policies. They think that they should find solutions by rearranging the role divisions between the husband and the wife or by asking for help from their parents or other relatives. The only assistance they expect from the government are reliable child care facilities and governmental incentives to promote stimulate the family-friendly workplace.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.377-383
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• 2021

Background: This study investigated the longitudinal associations between the degrees of positive and negative spillover in work-life balance (WLB) at baseline and reports of depressive mood at a 2-year follow-up in Korean women employees. Methods: We used a panel study design data of 1386 women employees who participated in the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families in both 2014 and 2016. Depressive mood was measured using the "10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale." Associations between the positive and negative spillover in WLB at baseline and reports of new incidence of depressive mood at 2-year follow-up were explored using a multivariate logistic regression model. Results: Negative spillover in WLB at baseline showed a significant linear association with reports of depressive mood at 2-yearfollow-up after adjusting for age, education level, marital status, number of children, and positive spillover (P = 0.014). The highest scoring group in negative spillover (fourth quartile) showed a significant higher odds ratio of 1.95 compared with the lowest scoring group (first quartile; P = 0.036). Conclusion: Positive spillover in WLB showed a U-shaped association with depression. The degrees of positive and negative spillover in WLB among Korean women employees at baseline were associated with new incidence of depressive mood within 2 years. To prevent depression of female workers, more discrete and differentiated policies on how to maintain healthy WLB are required.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.57 no.2
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• pp.185-204
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• 2005

In a period of rapid change, transition and re-definition of care concept, this study reviewed social policies on care providers in the UK. In the face of care crisis, the British government has made a radical reform of the care system and enacted new legislations. In the UK social policy, care providers are classified into carers and care workers. Carers mean informal caregivers and care workers are those who are paid for providing care as part of a contract of employment. Recently, the United Kingdom has given carers recognition and reward. To enhance the status and right of carers, the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995, the strategy document Caring about Carers 1999, Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000, and Carers (Equal Opportunities) Act 2004 have been enacted. At the heart of the policy for carers is the idea of active citizenship, carers-friendly employment and work-life balance etc. In case of paid care worker, government's focus seems to be on quality of employment. The government has established a new national infrastructure for quality. The five national bodies founded on Care Standards Act 2000 has been established. The UK government has realized care work would play an important part in job creation strategy. In this article, we have presented several criticisms and issues of current care policy in UK.

• Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.330-343
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• 2020

Purpose: This study aimed to describe the meaning of marriage and childbirth among Korean female university students living in the United States, who are influenced both by Korean culture at home and American culture in social contexts. Methods: This qualitative study used phenomenological approaches. Data were collected through individual in-depth interviews with five Korean female university students living in the United States. Data were analyzed using Colaizzi's method to derive the meaning of marriage and childbirth. Results: From the data, 239 meaningful statements, 49 meaning formations, 22 themes, and 12 theme clusters were extracted. Additionally, five major categories emerged. These categories were 1) marriage as an opportunity for self-growth, 2) the mirror of life: parents, 3) oneself who cannot give up, 4) a desire to live a stable life, and 5) ambivalence on the culture of two countries. Conclusion: To improve the positive meaning of marriage and childbirth, a positive role model such as a happy married life of parents at home must be ensured. Finally, institutional strategies should be established to support the balance between home and work, as well as various policies which support women's pregnancy and childbirth.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.53-58
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• 2024

Background: As social distancing persists and interest in work-life balance grows, more companies are adopting flexible work policies. While there have been studies on sleep disorders associated with different types of work, such as shift work, research exploring the relationship between flexible work schedules and sleep disorders is still limited, particularly among Korean workers. Methods: We performed a secondary analysis of the 6th Korean Working Conditions Survey, focusing on 31,243 paid workers out of a total of 50,538 participants. We defined flexible workers as those who set their own working hours. Sleep disorders were divided into three categories: 'difficulty falling asleep,' 'frequent waking during sleep,' and 'waking up feeling exhausted and fatigued.' Using scores derived from three specific symptoms, the Minimal Insomnia Symptoms Scale (MISS) was calculated to assess the prevalence of insomnia. We used chi-square tests to analyze demographic and job-related differences. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was employed to identify any relationship between flexible work schedules and sleep disorders. Results: Significant differences were found between flexible and non-flexible workers regarding age, income level, education level, and job type. Flexible workers reported sleep-related symptoms significantly more often. The odds ratio for insomnia was 1.40 (95% CI 1.21-1.61). For males, the odds ratio was 1.68 (1.36-2.08). Conclusion: This study establishes a correlation between flexible work schedules and sleep disorders among Korean salaried workers. Potential causes could include changes in circadian rhythm, increased work demands, and extended working hours. To precisely determine causality and associated diseases, further research is required.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.404-412
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• 2020

Typically everyday human life tasks involve at least two people moving objects such as tables and beds, and the balancing of such object changes based on one person's action. However, many studies in previous work performed their tasks solely on robots without factoring human cooperation. Therefore, in this paper, we propose cooperative robot for table balancing using Q-learning that enables cooperative work between human and robot. The human's action is recognized in order to balance the table by the proposed robot whose camera takes the image of the table's state, and it performs the table-balancing action according to the recognized human action without high performance equipment. The classification of human action uses a deep learning technology, specifically AlexNet, and has an accuracy of 96.9% over 10-fold cross-validation. The experiment of Q-learning was carried out over 2,000 episodes with 200 trials. The overall results of the proposed Q-learning show that the Q function stably converged at this number of episodes. This stable convergence determined Q-learning policies for the robot actions. Video of the robotic cooperation with human over the table balancing task using the proposed Q-Learning can be found at http://ibot.knu.ac.kr/videocooperation.html.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.15-26
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to provide meaningful implications for the establishment and implementation of social welfare policies for one-person households and to investigate the structural relationship between social participation and social support of one-person householders on their quality of life. As a result of the analysis, it was found that there was a positive correlation between the three variables. The direct and indirect effects of social participation on the quality of life were significant, and the social support partially mediated the relationship between social participation and quality of life. Therefore, it will be necessary to establish a welfare policy system that can promote social support by improving the quality of life of one-person households by providing concrete and diverse ways to activate social participation. Subsequent researches should be dealt with a more in - depth qualitative research on the concrete realization of this.