• Survey Research
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.1-21
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to compare the estimates of housework time by gender using two representative methods of time use study: Time Diary and Stylized Survey Questionnaire. Our analysis is based on the data from the Lifetime Use Survey(2004), which used time-diary questions, and the Korean Labor & Income Panel Study(KLIPS 2004), which used stylized questions on housework hours. The results show that men over-report their housework time in the stylized time use questions. In contrast, women under-report their housework time, which is unusual in the previous studies on response errors and reporting gap. Subgroup analysis shows that widowed/divorced men tend to over-report their contribution to housework more than other groups whereas among women, groups burdened with employed work, caring and housework underestimate their housework time. This reporting gap is explained by gendered norm and perception of time pressure. The theory to explain under-reporting of the housework time has been undeveloped in the previous studies. Our study suggests that perceptions of time pressure be an important factor to explain women's reporting gap of housework estimates.

• Journal of Family Relations
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.77-98
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• 2016

Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore perceived meanings of dating and marriage among well-educated Korean couples who were in optimal marriageable ages. Particularly, an emphasis was placed on finding out where the traditional gender norms and post-modern contexts intersect on the couples' course of dating and marriage. Method: We undertook a qualitative analysis of 8 couples (age: 26-34) dating. Participants were limited to university graduates of upper-middle rank universities in Seoul, South Korea. The rationale for choosing such sample was based on the idea that characteristics of class is inherent in the act of dating and marriage, and that such characteristics lead to different contextual experiences in dating and marriage. This study was based on interviews conducted over a three-month time span. The interviews were first transcribed into research text and then subjects and key categories were drawn from the transcripts for analysis. Results: Participants sought meanings of joy, learning, and self-improvement in dating, and they were free from traditional gender norms in their romantic relationships. They viewed marriage as having a permanent companionship with their partner, becoming independent from their parents, and/or a social norm to be followed. Participants reported mixed perceptions about marriage in such fashion that they described their parents' relationship in terms of a gendered leader-supporter relationship, while viewing their own relationship as being genderless partners. In transition to parenthood, however, they regressed to traditional gender norms dichotomized as women being a homemaker and men being a breadwinner. In sum, participants displayed expectations that were inconsistent with regard to dating and marriage over the study period. That is, during the course of dating and early marriage, they did not hold separated gender norms; however, when transitioning from being a newly married couple to giving their first childbirth, expectations shifted to traditional gender norms and values. Conclusion: This suggests that it is not marriage, but the experience of childbirth and motherhood, which strengthen traditional gendered norms, engendering regeneration of the gender norms in families. The results indicate that there is a need to promote co-parenting behavior among the newly-married couples and to educate gender equality about parent roles or for parents in South Korea so that they can overcome traditional gendered norms in family.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.191-216
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• 2007

This study focuses on the problem of feminization of poverty that is formed within family relations. In order to approach this question, this study analyses the process of becoming poor through the life stories of ten woman are now heads of a household. There are differences among the study participants in the process of becoming a member of a low-income class. I have classified them into two groups depending on the routes they are led into the low-income class; one is the continuation of poverty group, and the other is the new members of the low-income class group. The continuation of poverty group is the case where they have been poor since their childhood and are still poor in their adulthood. The new members of the low-income class group is the case where you have become a low-income class sometime around divorce. The difference of the groups are related to the differences of the ways the power relationships work within a family. Women head of a household are prone to poverty because of the discrimination in formation, distribution and control of resources in their original family and their family formed by marriage. The norm of male breadwinner worked as a discrimination device. But this kind of discrimination device showed differences in their workings according to class. The continuation of poverty group experienced exclusion in the gendered responsibility of supporting the family and maintaining the family, whereas the other group experienced exclusion through the gendered nature of the distribution and control of resources. By showing that the presupposition of discussions on the poverty of woman head of a household is false, these findings challenge the existing view that as long as 'The Family' is maintained women will not be poor.