• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.103-116
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of family mealtime on the childrens' school adaptation. This study uses data from the 2012 Survey on Child Education and School Involvement of Parents by the Center for Family-School Partnership Policy Research at Seoul National University. Survey data was collected from 1500 parents with school-aged children. For the data analysis, Chi sqaure test and hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted. The results of these analyses showed that the numbers of family meals shared averaged 4.26 times per week for breakfast and 4.33 times per week for dinner. There were significant differences in the number of family meals shared together according to school level, residence area, and parent employment status, and household income. In addition, childrens' school adaptation was significantly different depending on school level, parent gender, parent education, and parent employment status. Finally, according to the hierarchical regression analyses, the number of family meals shared significantly predicted childrens' school adaptation. The greater number of family meals shared, the stronger the childrens' school adaptation. These results indicate that family mealtime has a positive effect on childrens' school adaptation. This study suggests that family mealtime is an indicator of family strength and it needs to guarantee family shared time at least to have a dinner together. This study could provide grounds for making family policy and education policy in order to guarantee family shared time.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.151-166
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• 2014

This study attempted to explore how middle aged married men and women prospected a Centenarian society and what implications their prospect cast for family policy. We conducted focus group interviews with five groups in order to identify their subjective prospects on marital relations, parent-child relations, caregiving from family or institutions, and alternative living arrangement. From those interviews, we found that married men and women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s possessed ambivalent attitudes toward their marital relationship, either acknowledging an importance of marital relationship or accepting long-standing disrespectful marital relationship. They also had a dualistic perspective on parent-child relationship, accepting parental responsibility for children and even grand-children but maintaining low expectations for children. What they needed was age appropriate opportunities for work or leisure and better community services and facilities. These results showed that the middle-aged was concerned experiencing unprecedented family situations. They needed family life education and services in order to adapt to the Centenarian society. Since family policy has viewed this age group out of service target, programs and services have been underdeveloped for this group. Expecting a Centenarian society however, we need to expand the boundary of family policy and take a new perspective. We need to develop and implement marital education programs, community-based self-care services, and age-appropriated opportunities for work, leisure, and social relations.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.161-187
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• 2010

This study begins with two research interests. Firstly, there seems to be a break of research in the field of family policy in Korea which exists especially in regard to family law. Family law was originally the core of state interventions in family life, but has been neglected because of the lack of literature with comparative research methods. This shortcoming needs to be addressed. Secondly, through inquiry into the definition of family or family policy with the lens of the law, the definition of family or family policy can be correctly extended. With these two interests combined, this research tries to derive an analytical tool - maintenance community - of the law and compare some important points of the family law of Korea with those of 16 EU-countries in terms of regime classification. The method used is, firstly, to describe the subjects of family law with a focus on partnering and parenting without subjective interpretation, and secondly, to classify the countries' family-law regimes with the criteria of privacy and autonomy using cluster analysis. The results show that the countries can be classified into three clusters: Nordic (Norway and Sweden), West-Northern (Denmark, France, England, Finland, and Belgium) and Middle South (Italy, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Netherlands, Greece, Ireland, Germany, and Korea). This result can be compared to a precedent research result which showed that 21 OECD countries can be classified in three clusters according to family policy. The number of the clusters is the same as this study, but some countries belong to other clusters; for example Denmark and Finland belong to the Nordic cluster according to family policy, while they belong to the West-Northern according to family law, and Austria, Germany, and Ireland belong to the Middle-South cluster according to family law, while they belong to the Continental according to family policy. From this result we can interpret Korean family law to be in the middle range according to both criteria of privacy and autonomy like other South-European countries including some Continental countries. We can make some theoretical suggestions. The fact that both family law and family policy regimes in countries can be classified into three clusters can be interpreted to mean that there exists parallelism between family law and family policy in a broad sense. But from the fact that some countries belong to different clusters according to family law and family policy, we can say that the family policy in a country is not always consistent with family law.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.78-97
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• 2009

This study examined the factors related to family caregiver satisfaction with institutional care services for beneficiaries under the Public Long-Term Care Insurance(PLTCI) system. Determining what contributes to family caregiver satisfaction is a critical step toward implementing effective quality improvement strategies. A national cross-sectional descriptive survey was conducted from November to December 2008, using proportionate quota sampling based on the location and level of Long-Term Care of the beneficiaries. Total 1,745 family caregivers wrote informed consents and 733 (response rate 42%) completed questionnaires, which included caregiver characteristics, organizational resources, primary objective and subjective stressors, perceived quality of services, and family caregiver satisfaction. Family caregivers were satisfied overall with institutional care. In multiple regression analysis, there was a statistically significant difference in degree of family caregiver satisfaction according to caregiver characteristics(relationship to beneficiary), primary objective stressors (insurance type of beneficiary), perceived quality of services(respect to family caregivers' idea, ADL support, expertness of staff, careful concern of staff, fulfillment of client's requests, and safety of institution's environment). In public long-term care, satisfaction efforts are in an early stage of development. This study is meaningful as the first attempt to measure family caregiver satisfaction with institutional care for beneficiaries under the PLTCI system, and to identify factors affecting the satisfaction. Among the identified factors, the policy makers, the insurer, and the providers need to pay attention to perceived quality of services, in particular, to improve customer satisfaction. Our findings can provide quality care improvement initiatives in the public long-term care setting.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.53-70
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• 2015

The number of Healthy Family Support Centers has dramatically increased and the services for healthy families such as family education, family counsel, family culture and family care have increased during the past ten years since the Framework Act on Healthy Families was enacted. This growth is largely credited to Healthy Family Specialists. At a time when the family policy delivery system is changing, it is most urgent to enhance the capability of Healthy Family Specialists. In this study, we aim to investigate the current capability of Healthy Family Specialists and suggest the education plan for their empowerment. We collected data from 151 Healthy Family Support Centers by mail and e-mail in June 2014. There were total of 1,001 subjects for analysis(781 by mail and 220 by e-mail). We analyzed the capabilities of Healthy Family Specialist by service areas according to work-related characteristics and possession of a license. Our findings revealed that the capabilities of Healthy Family Specialist varied depending on the service year and whether or not having a licence. These results suggest that the education program for empowerment will provide a differentiated content according to the service year and whether or not having a license. This study contributes to a better understanding of Healthy Family Specialists' current capability and provides insights on how to enhance their capability in order to change the family policy delivery system.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.24 no.6 s.84
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• pp.161-176
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to conduct a family impact analysis to examine the effects of policies to lower fertility in families in Korea. Data were collected from a purposive sample of three groups of government officials, family scholars, and staff at family-related organizations and associations. 105 family policy professionals responded to the self-report questionnaire. The family impact analysis scale was formulated by the researcher based on Ooms'(1995)'A checklist for assessing the impact of policies on families' and Lawson & Lawson's(2001)'An example on family impact analysis checklist or inventory.' The results showed there were eight factors in the family impact analysis on the policies to low fertility in Korea; strengthening family membership and stability; providing various convenient public services; recognizing family interdependence; recognizing the efficiency of implementing policies and support of vulnerable families; strengthening the family function of childbirth; recognizing family relationships; preventing family problems and empowering families; and recognizing family diversity. The conclusions and implications of these findings were also discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.97-107
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• 2012

The aim of this study is to suggest the introduction of family impact analysis. Family impact analysis is needed to evaluate family policies from the family perspective. This study deals with the definition of family impact analysis and the cases of other impact analysis, such as gender impact assessment and employment impact analysis. In addition, this study suggests the introduction of family impact analysis with evaluation methods, evaluation indicators, and evaluation processes. Evaluation methods are divided into self-assessment and specific-assessment. Evaluation indicators need to be developed based on the family strength. This research also suggests the securing of family time as a basic assessment indicator. The evaluation processes consist of object selection, assessment, evaluation report, and policy improvement. Finally, this study suggests that family impact analysis is a strong strategy for promoting family-friendly policies. In order to introduce family impact analysis in a more systematic manner, further studies on the standards of assessment, formation of research institutions, and the legislative system will be necessary.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.145-173
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to verify that several theories explaining the determinants of welfare expenditure is applied to the family policy expenditure and to find out if there' re unique determinants of the family policy expenditure. We analyzed the data (OECD 14 countries for 1980~2005) by pooled time series analysis. As for industrialization theory, female labor force participation rate has positive effect on family policy expenditure while population under 15-year children has negative effect, which refers to the demand of family policies is that of female workers, not children's. Power resource theory is applied to the determinants of family policy expenditure as those of welfare expenditure. Women's political & economic empowerment has partly positive effects on family policy expenditure, which is the evidence of the effectiveness of feminist theory. In the institutional theory, we verified the effect of policy legacy but couldn't find out the crowding-out effect. The theoretical implication of this study is the empirical verification of the theories explaining the determinants of welfare expenditure being applied to the family policy expenditure. We also suggested the political and institutional foundation to effectively respond to the new social risks in spite of budget constraints, which can be a policy implication.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.279-308
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• 2010

This study examines the association between family policies and family gap using data for 14 OECD countries. As family policies have different assumptions about women's roles and include variant sub-policies, this study identify two distinct family policies: 'employment support policy' to support women as employed workers and 'caregiving support policy' to support women as caregivers. Meanwhile, women's wage cannot be determined by the effect of 'only' family policy. Therefore, analysis model includes variant macro structure supposed to affect women's labor status and wage, like labor market structure, wage structure(compression), women's social status and economic status, and examines interaction effects between family policies and these labor market and social structures using Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (FSQCA). The FSQCA result shows that relatively low family gap is associated with the conjunctual causation of developed 'employment support policy' and compressed wage structure.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.61-81
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate the policy demands of the family sector for work-family balance, with a focus on the child care and household labor provisions. For empirical analysis, data were collected from 197 dual-income families with at least one young child under age 10 in the metropolitan area via self-administered questionnaires. The major findings of this study were as follows. First, child care provisions for working mothers and fathers were insufficient and unfair, and the ratio of child care provisions offered by familial child care network was high. The characteristics of child care provisions for working parents were associated with family structure, working conditions, and demographic variables. Second, household labor provisions for working mothers and fathers were also insufficient and unfair, and the ratio of socialization was high. Third, the level of family satisfaction varied by the level of child care and household labor provisions, respectively, controlling family structure, working conditions, and demographic variables. The empirical results of the study provided policy implications for work-family balance.