• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.149-159
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• 2004

An Ethnographic Decision Model (EDM) to explore socioeconomic, cultural, and psychological factors related to the attitudes toward childless family was developed in this study. From college students' protocol writings, this research found that the participants in general had conservative views about childless families. They tended to simplify childless families as either infertile couples or DINK (Double Income No Kids) couples. The participants explained why they decided to have or not to have children in the future. They seemed to believe in a traditional family structure and idealize parental roles, while recognizing the high economic and psychological cost of rearing children. They claimed that Korean society set high standards for parents, which were too difficult to reach. The participants, having been educated to believe in self-actualization through their successful careers, struggled to choose between a family with children and one without children. This study was conducted with a holistic view, and highlighted the importance of interactions between traditional ideology about the family and socioeconomic contexts when interpreting college students' perspectives on childless family.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.79-95
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• 2013

This study is aimed at exploring the experience of couples choosing not to have children after marriage. To identify the motives for voluntary childlessness and social perceptions, a qualitative research method was used for analysis. After in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 childless couples who had agreed to participate in the research, 15 meaning units, 5 categories, and 3 topics were established. The research findings were categorized as follows: 'the motives for being childless', 'the surrounding response and coping response', and 'the expectation of a childless family's society.' The research participants argued that families without children should be fully accepted in the changing society, with the hope that their childlessness would be respected. The significance of this study is that it focused on the perceptions of families and society, while steering away from personal views on the meaning of a life absent of children. Based on the perception that childlessness is not only a personal matter but also a social issue, this study clearly showed a variety of reactions to childless couples, such as the labeling of them as eccentric people and disapproval of them. Furthermore, this study has elaborated on the personal experience of childless couples by clearly indicating their desires to seek government support and compensation.

• Journal of Family Relations
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.3-29
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• 2018

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the acceptance of family diversity among college students and related variables. Method: Data were collected by a structured questionnaire with 280 students who attended in three universities located in J province. SPSS Statistics Program version 24.0 was used to analyze the collected data. To answer the research questions, descriptive statistics, t-test, F-test, Pearson's correlation analyses, and regression analyses were performed. Results: The major results of the survey were summarized as below. First, the acceptance of family diversity among college students was slightly higher than the middle level(M=12.11). Most students accepted nuclear family as a typical family. More than half of the students accepted single parent families, adaptive families, step families, unmarried mother families, childless couples, homosexual families, elderly women living alone, and families composed of siblings as a family. Second, there was a significant difference by religiosity. Students without religion were higher than their counterparts with religion in a level of family diversity acceptance. Among the individual factors, third, a level of traditional family value had a significant negative effect on a level of family diversity acceptance. And perspective taking had a positive effect on a level of family diversity acceptance. Fourth, among the family factors, parent-child open communication did not affect a level of family diversity acceptance. However, parents' gender egalitarian beliefs had a significant positive effect on a level of family diversity acceptance. Lastly, regarding the relative effects of the personal and family factors, the traditional family value had the largest effect on a level of family diversity acceptance among college students. Conclusions: Base on these results, the implications and limitations of the study were discussed.

• Journal of Family Relations
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.131-152
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• 2018

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to compare the first echo boomer to second in the needs for family strengths and family functions, after controlling the sociodemographic characteristics. Method: For this study, a survey was conducted with 406 never-married young adults, which has 182 first echo boomers and 224 seconds echo boomers as using the same self-report questionnaire. Results: First, the two echo boomer groups exhibited similar patterns in their perception of the three family strengths, positive family values, pursuit of coexistence, and spiritual value, in that order. On the other hand, in regard to family functions, groups' perceived emotion entertainment leisure function as core functions of the family, but the second echo boomers, unlike the first echo boomers, expressed a higher need for economic functions rather than functions for children generation. Second, the analysis of this study indicated that, even in cases where first and second echo boomers had the same social-demographic characteristics, the latter in contrast with the former tended not to regard spiritual values such love for shared ethical values, compassion, and religious beliefs as a family strength, and did not require functions for children generation of the family. Conclusions: From these findings, the differences in the needs for family strengths and functions expressed by the two generations belonging to two different birth cohorts were influenced by various changes in Korean society occurring between the two generations, such as the social divergence in the functions of care and nurture, the increase in one-person and childless households, and the weakening of kinship-centered or communitarian forms of familism.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.1-26
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• 2006

This paper examines the interplay among changes in socioeconomic conditions, population policies, and fertility decline during $1960{\sim}2000$ in South Korea. Period-parity-progression-ratios (PPPR) are calculated using 2% samples of Population Census with the implied distribution of completed family size. The total fertility rate based on PPPR declined from 5.21 in 1960 to 2.76 in 1980, and 1.69 in 2000. The family planning programs were successful in meeting the needs of families that wanted to prevent further childbearing after having achieved the desired family size during $1960{\sim}1970$. The 1980s mark two important landmarks: achievement of replacement fertility and emergence of high sex ratio at birth. In the 1990s the "quality and welfare" approach was emphasized. In 2000s, South Korea's fertility is one of the lowest in the world. In response to this, in 2005, the Government adopted a new population policy with the goal of increasing the total fertility level to 1.6 by 2010. The results of this study indicate that proportion of women who would have no children at all throughout their reproductive life span increased substantially from 10% in 1995 to 16% in 2000, with a sharp increase since 1997. Thus, pro-natal programs need to address the problems associated with marriage and having the first child. Towards that, it is important that work and family life become more compatible.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.11-24
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• 1976

This study was a part of large scale of a prospective study on attitudes of professional students in medicine, nursing and teaching toward population related issues in Korea. The study was first conducted in May 1974 and then in May 1975 for the 1974 class cohot using a questionaire consisted of attitude scales and other items developed by Lee. The purpose of stuay was twohold, namely, to determine the difference in students among specializations on one hand and between the first and second years in the 1974 class cohot regarding tile subject matter. A one-way analysis of variance was used for attitude scale, and absolute and relative frequency were computed for the analysis of non-attitude scale items by employing Fishers' Ratio and Duncan's multiple range test at 5% level and chi square test at 5% level as significance tests. The hypothesis 'students in health profession are more likely to have positive attitudes toward population related issues progressively as class year advances than students in teaching profession' was tested and the following results were obtained: 1) Nursing students were more likely to display favarable attitudes toward family planning than medical or teaching students although the class cohot showed slightly negative improvement in the second year. Medical and teaching students apperaed to have slightly improved attitudes in the second year. 2) Respondents in general perceived national family planning program as a means of population control and this tendency was more true among nursing students as the class year advances than two other professional groups of students. Students in teaching profession appeared to perceive it more as a means to improve individual family welfare while health students were likely to see as to improve maternal and child health. This tendency was progressively improved as the class year advanced. 3) The majority of students regardless of their respective specializations believed that family planning program should be directed toward the improvement of individual family welfare. No progressive changes in the class cohot were observed. 4) About the plan to use contraceptives in future, no singnificant differences were observes among different specializations nor in different class years. However, the majority was confirmed to have a plan to use contracepives in future. An increasing proportion of the undecided category was observed, as class year advanced among health students. 5) Students in health profession were found to be more favorable about 'more leisure opportunities' as motive for limiting number of children whereas education students indicated the reasons as 'facilitate ambitions' and 'economic base' The progressive changes toward positive direction in both groups were observed as the class years advanced. 6) Attitudes toward induced abortions of the health students were observed to be positively related to class years while an inverse relationship was found in teaching students who showed much less favor in the subject matter than health students. This phenomenon may be due to the different exposure to learning environments unique to respective specializations. 7) Health students were found to have more favorable attitudes toward population education in general than the teaching students. The teaching students appeared to have changed more to the negative direction when they became the second year while no such development was observed in health students. The teaching students seemed to hold a very conservative position with regard to sex education in schools. 8) About the equality of sexes, the nursing group was found to be most favorable while the reverse was true in the teaching group. A change in the negative direction as the class year advanced was found in the teaching group. 9) About questions related to fertility values-the 10 percent of respondents regardless of specialization indicated that they would maintain their single status in future, however no change was observed in the second year. The desired number of children was found to be two by the majority of students in nursing, medicine and teaching in order of high proportion. No changes in a different class year were observed. The childless marriage was seen by nursing students as a problem more than other students, but a slight change in positive direction was found when the nursing students became the second year. In summing, as data supported in the above, students in health profession demonstrated more favorable attitudes toward population related issues than the teaching students and this tendency became more apparent in the second year. It was noticed that health students were more conscious about the health aspect of population and family planning program while the teaching students gave more attention to the socioeconomic aspect. The sex variable seemed to have operated in the item related to the equality of sexes. In conclusion, as data presented in the above, the hypothesis of this study was accepted except in the few items. It should be noted that the limitation of this study is the short duration of the observation in measuring the possible attitude changes. It should include curriculum analysis for the respective specializations in order to indentify the area of curriculum impact on students in future study.