• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.185-203
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• 2017

Objective: The present study examined the perspectives of grandparents raising their grandchildren in an attempt to better understand grandparents' child-rearing experience while providing kinship foster care to their primary-grade grandchildren. Methods: Data were collected through individual in-depth interviews with eight grandparents who have raised one or two primary-grade (ages 8-10) grandchildren using a qualitative approach. Results: First, the participants viewed the reason for their kinship foster care as a failure for caring for their own children and accepted the present grandparent-care provision as their responsibility. Second, the participants communicated constant struggles with their own health and grandchild-care as well as positive/negative emotions associated with the care provision. Third, most of the participants did not fully understand the developmental needs of their primary-grade grandchildren. Fourth, the participants articulated concerns for their primary-grade grandchildren's learning, peer interactions, school adjustment, and extra-curricular activities. Lastly, the participants all agreed on hoping to raise grandchildren with good personality traits as members of a society and to have them fill the gap from the loss of their parents. Conclusion: Although most participants accepted the current circumstances as their obligation, they still noted difficulties in child-care provision. Given the developmental needs of grandchildren and the resource needs of grandparents, proper and continuous intervention approaches should be developed/provided.

• Korean Journal of Family Social Work
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• no.62
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• pp.71-102
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to enrich our understanding of the family utilizing childcare by grandmothers and the elderly women by examining the experience of grandmothers who refused to support raising their grandchildren. The researcher focused on grandmothers who have been in charge of caring the family in the main and tried to explore the reasons for their decision not to take care of their grandchildren. For the purpose, Research participants were seven elderly women who have refused raising of their grand-children. Data were collected by in-depth interview and analyzed based on the phenomenological method. As results, it turned out that the elderly women refused caring of their grandchildren due to the burden of parenting and the rejection of an extended mother role, and the fear of family conflicts, but they felt sorry about their refusal of a request for caring support from their adult children. Second. these decisions caused various dynamics of the family members, and they were experiencing psychological difficulties. Third, elderly women perceived raising of grandchildren as a task of adult children or a problem for which the society should be accountable, and felt that the family and the society have shifted the responsibility to them. This research result confirms that a new generation of the elderly women have emerged who have different viewpoints on caregiving. It also presents a necessity to reflect the viewpoints of elderly who are mainly concerned when establishing a policy of caregiving. Based on this finding, this study also presents implications regarding support for family utilizing childcare by grandmothers and support for the elderly women.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.15-26
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• 2010

This study was conducted in order to understand grandmothers' satisfaction of caring for working mothers' children and the influence of related variables with regard to living arrangements. The data were collected from 245 grandmothers who have been caring for their grandchildren for more than 6 months. The data were analyzed by mean, t-test, $x^2$-test, and hierarchical multiple regression. The results were as follows: First, Degree of satisfaction was lower in grandmothers who were living with their children than those who were not. Second, the variables affecting the grandmothers living with their children were economic status, extent of care giving activities, and social support, wherein social support proved to be the most influential. In the case of those not living with their children, the significant variables were motive and social support, motive being more influential. This result indicates that affecting variables differ by the grandmothers' living arrangements, and thus the strategy to enhance their care giving satisfaction should differ as well, based on the findings.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.1-24
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experiences of grandmothers who provide child care services to their grandchildren and employed mothers who utilize child care by grandmothers, with regards to their relationships while exchanging the specific type of intergenerational support. The data for this study came from 42 in-depth, individual interviews with 21 pairs of employed mothers who had at least one child younger than elementary-school age and their mothers or mothers-in-law who had provided child care on a daily basis for their grandchildren. Our phenomenological analysis revealed that the grandmothers felt uncomfortable and overwhelmed when caring for their grandchildren and that they considered this activity to be different from caring for their own children by nature. However, the grandmothers wanted to help their adult children based on their feeling of "boo-mo-ma-eum" (meaning parental heart, i.e., love or care). The employed mothers perceived that they were substantially dependent on the grandmothers by receiving help with child care and housework. Reliance on grandmothers was inevitable and beneficial to these mothers. Dynamic intergenerational living arrangements enabled the dependent relationships. The grandmothers set specific boundaries pertaining to current and future child care so that they would not take on too much responsibility for child care. The mothers used various strategies that contributed to stable child care support from the grandmothers. Providing financial remuneration was an important strategy that had symbolic relational meanings, such as expressing gratitude, rather than financial meanings.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.1-23
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• 2016

This study analyzes the effects of caring for grandchildren on Korean grandparents' health, using the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging from 2006 to 2012. We investigate how caregiving is provided and analyze the effects of caregiving on grandparents' physical health, mental health, and health-related behaviors. As elderly people's health is generally frail, it is unclear whether the provision of childcare affects their health negatively. We control for the endogeneity of caregiving by an individual fixed effect (FE) model and instrumental variable-fixed effect (FE-IV) models. Using these models, we determine the endogeneity of caregiving and show that the significant effects of caregiving on health disappear as we control for endogeneity in the FE and FE-IV models. Even after controlling for endogeneity, we find that caregiving increases the probability of feeling pain as well as the number of different types of pain. Furthermore, caregiving increases the probability of restrictions on daily activities because of pain. On the other hand, caregiving reduces the symptoms of depression. In relation to health-related behaviors, caregiving reduces the probability of physical exercise and regular meals. Our results imply that although caregiving has a positive effect on mental health, the increase in physical pain and in non-healthy behaviors may lead to a deterioration of the caregiver's long-term health, which in turn may increase the medical costs of the elderly. Potential policy alternatives are discussed in the paper.

• The Korean Nurse
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.69-84
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• 1995

The purpose of this study was to identify caregivers of the elderly, the pattern of the caregivers' caring behaviors, and the cultural principles of patterns of caring behaviors practiced in a Korean minority community, Yanbian. To clarify these, an ethnographic approach was used. The fieldwork for this study was conducted from Aug. 24, 1993 to May 20, 1994. The informants were 16 natives, age 60 or more, who were members of a large family of three generations. The results of the study are as follows. The caregivers for the elderly were family, kinship and community groups. Family caregivers for the elderly were spouses, sons, daughters-in-law, grandchildren, sons of former wives, sons of former husbands, adopted sons. daughters and sons-in-law. The elderly had caregivers who were part of the kinship group. Three community groups provided care for the elderly. The three community groups were Dokbozo. a formal large organization for the elderly. the same age group as an informal small meeting for the elderly, and other community younger groups. The findings of this study indicated that family caregivers, especially spouses and sons, are the significant others of the elderly, and comminuty groups are better caring groups than kinship relatives. This study identified forty-three different kind of caring behaviors. They were divided into fifteen behavior patterns. These patterns integrated into five categories : soo-bal(¼?¹ß), protecting, respect, support, jung(?×). For physical comfort, soo-bal and protecting were conducted. For the comfort of mind, respect. support, and jung were conducted. The comfort of mind are better than physical comfort for the elderly. Cultural principles of caring behaviors were group membership, reciprocity, and harmony. But there was no hierarchy priciple. And these three principles provide best caring together at the same time. This study provides significant data for nursing research, theory and practice.

• International journal of advanced smart convergence
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.140-145
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• 2018

This study is based on the National Pension Research Institute's 2013 Korean Retirement and Income Study(KReIS) 5 Data for Parents and Children Care over 50 years old and analyzed the satisfaction level of life according to the characteristics of 226 people in society. The results showed that women were more satisfied with their lives than men, and when the age was lower, when they had spouses, and when they had independent economic power. As for the grandchildren caring provider, the higher the education levels, the higher the satisfaction with life. And across all areas, the grandchildren care provider showed greater satisfaction with life than the parents care provider. These results show that the burden of the parents' carers is as great as that. Suggestions based on these results are as follows. First, It is necessary to develop a health care program that can be easily accessed by family carers. Second, Direct economic support is needed, with the primary focus being on family carers. Third, services targeting parents care providers are needed. It is also necessary to form a network that can share the difficulties of parental care.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.205-217
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• 2014

This study examined attitudes of grandmothers who had experience in grandchild care in order to explore their subjectivity. Research questions were 1) to categorize the attitudes toward grandchild care, and 2) to analyze each type's characteristics and elucidate the analyses. The results are as follows. Grandmothers' attitudes toward grandchild care were categorized into three types: (1) adjusting-to-role-change type, (2) recognizing-the-role-burdens type, (3) enjoying-the-traditional-role type. Type 1, the adjusting-to-role-change type was aware of positive facets of grandchild care, and actively accepted the caring responsibility, but did not think it was a grandmother's duty to care for the grandchildren or that it was the sole pleasure in a grandmother's life. Type 2, the recognizing-the-role-burdens type, had a negative view regarding grandchild care, perceiving the cost too high relative to the reward. On the other hand, Type 3, the enjoying-the-traditional-role type considered grandchild care as a pleasure and a duty, and downplayed negative aspects such as having no time to herself, assuming the traditional grandmother role and enjoying it. These results imply that the attitudes of grandmothers nowadays are undergoing a change from the traditional grandmother role attitude.

• Journal of Family Relations
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.51-74
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• 2017

Objectives: This study observes how providing family support - financial, emotional, and instrumental - is related to depression in babyboom women. Method: I analysed data from the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families 5th wave, collected by the Korean Women's Development Institute. The analysis was conducted using regression, t-test, Chi-square test, frequency analysis, and Pearson's correlation analysis. Results: Financial support for grown-up children, either married or unmarried, increases depression in babyboom women. In the dimension of instrumental support, caring for grandchildren reduces babyboom women's depression. It implies that contact with grandchildren is perceived as an emotional support rather than a physical burden. The results of this study also show that babyboom women are comforted by living with their own parents, but not by living with parents-in-law. The most impressive observation, however, is in the dimension of emotional support, which showed that the conversation with elderly parents reduces baby-boom women's depression, but that the conversation with married children increases it. The opposite directions in the effects seem to be related to the subjects of the conversations. The subjects of the conversation with children are mostly about problems and agenda of the children, while those with elderly parents are mainly about parents' health and care for each other. Conclusions: The results of the analyses suggest that babyboom women should become less involved with their grown-up children's lives. It also calls for the societal efforts to be put into building up the support system, especially for eco-boom generation, to reduce babyboomer's burden of supporting the children.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.491-518
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to compare with qualitative research articles on the grandparents' parenting experiences of grandchildren between those with primary responsibility and those with partial responsibility in Korean Journals since 2000. For the purpose of the study, this study analyzed research of 43 qualitative research articles(19 grandfamilies, 24 custodial grandparents), with respect to their objectives, basic annual trends, methodology, subject, category of content. The major findings are as follows. Firstly, the annual number of articles of grandfamilies are on an decreasing trend, while those of custodial grandparents are on an increasing trend. Secondly, the phenomenology and interview are frequently used in research of the two types of family. Thirdly, 6~10 participants were the most frequent number of participation in all of the family. However, demographics, caring circumstances, physical circumstances were significantly different in two types of family. Fourthly, caring categories of contents(the meaning, positive factor, conflict factor and resolution of conflicts) were also similar, while these were significant diffent in specific psychological experiences in all of the family. Based on the findings of this comparative study, suggestions for pratical services and implication for future study were proposed.