• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.29-45
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• 2004

This ethnographic case-study explores the interpretation and behavior in job considering among full-time housewives. The participants of this study are eleven middle class full-time housewives in their thirties and forties. In-depth interviews based on an unstructured Questionnaire were conducted for this study. Findings are as follows: Six full-time housewives tend to think their full-time housewife-lives more convenient, something unable to substitute and more profitable compared to the counter partner's lives. But they are classified into two groups according to the satisfaction for full-time housewife life. One group has found out more positive meaning in their life but the other group has not yet and they are doubtful about real life and other opportunity. In Contrast, other five full-time housewives tend to interpret employment as a more productive source to secure family resource for their children's education and repay the loan used to buy larger apartment. And the job is considered to confirm her own individuality and the feeling for the social entity as a competent social entity. But two of them who have never been employed do not try to get a job as a new identity alternative. And the various elements like household income, job experience, health, children's age and husband's attitude to his wife's employment etc. are defined to influence the interpretation and the job considering behavior among full-time housewives.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.395-406
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• 2019

This study examined what meaning East Asian women showed in their costume history through a discourse of hair adornments such as wigs and that Gache was not just a luxury decoration. In addition, we examined Gache hair trends with Eonjeun-meori (braid wraps around the entire head) in the Joseon dynasty (Korea), Gigye(旗?) hair in the Quing dynasty (China) and Mage(?) hair in the Edo period (Japan) during the $18^{th}$ and $19^{th}$ centuries. The significance of the phenomenon of East Asian Gache culture in the $18^{th}$ and $19^{th}$ centuries was analyzed from the internal desires of women. The details are as follows. First, the magnification by the hair decoration was identified with self-authority and used as a sign to express self-respect or a desire for self-esteem. The extended Gache was an external body extension to raise self-authority and increase activeness. Second, self-satisfaction through showing off was associated with a women's search for identity. There was excessive consumption to boast status, wealth and femininity, but the mania continued because women obtained psychological satisfaction by feeling that their sacrifices for the Confucian order were compensated. Third, the frenzy of Gache was accepted as a way for women to resist social regulations and find themselves as main participants in social activities. Showing their appearance in East Asian Gache culture was a way of inner self-searching and a process for women to find themselves as a social entity.