• Journal of Family Relations
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.201-228
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• 2018

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to classify never-married types of adult men and women and explore factors related to these types. Never-married types were categorized into 4 types according to continuity and voluntariness: continuous voluntary type; changed voluntary type; continuous non-voluntary type; and changed non-voluntary type. Factors related to types of being single were examined in terms of socio-demographic factors, individual and psychological factors (self-esteem, depression), dating relationship factors (current relationship status), original family factors (parental conflict, relationship with parents, parents' demand for marriage), marriage related factors (division of roles after marriage), and occupation related factors (work values, employment instability). Method: As for research method, a survey was conducted with never-married adult men and women between the ages of 35 and 49 living in Seoul, Gyeonggi or Incheon areas. Of 300 copies of questionnaire distributed, data from 295 copies were processed using SPSS 24.0 program for multinomial logit analysis. Results: The study results showed that, of never-married men respondents, continuous voluntary type accounted for 20.5%; changed voluntary type 18.9%; continuous non-voluntary type 49.6%; and changed non-voluntary type 11.0%. It was found that the factors related to continuous non-voluntary type among never-married men are age, religion, average monthly income, while the factors related to changed voluntary type are religion, self-esteem, depression, and frequency and strength of parental conflict, while the factor related to changed non-voluntary type men was living with parents. Examining never-married women respondents, it was found that, continuous voluntary type accounted for 33.9%; changed non-voluntary type 19.6%; continuous non-voluntary type 22.6%; and changed voluntary type 23.8%. The factor related to continuous non-voluntary type among never-married women was parents' demand for marriage, while the factors related changed voluntary type were age, depression and strength of parental conflict. Also, the factors related to changed non-voluntary type of never-married women were age, religion, living with parents, depression and parents' demand for marriage. Conclusion: In conclusion, it was found that continuous non-voluntary type formed the largest group among never-married men, whereas continuous voluntary type was the majority in never-married women. Both never-married men and women chose to remain single when they are living with their parents and their parental conflict is intense. Parents' demand for marriage was related to women, but not to men.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.177-193
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• 2014

In this study, we investigated the effect of family values and the resource factors provided by parents on marriage intention among men and women in their 30s and 40s who have never married. The study participants were 300 never-married men and women in their 30s and 40s living in Seoul and its suburbs. The participants were chosen via purposive sampling. The study results are follows. First, according to the analysis of the subjects' family values and the resource factors provided by parents, both family values and the resource provided factors by parents showed higher scores than the median. Subjects had higher scores than the median score in regards to marriage intention, indicating that they had a greater intention to marry. Second, a multiple regression analysis was conducted to identify the effect of the socio-demographic characteristics of subjects, family values, and the resource factors provided by parents on marriage intention. As a result, age, the need of marriage and gender-role attitudes prevalent in family values, and the economic resources among the resource factors provided by parents had significant effects on marriage intention. Thus, the older the age of the subjects, the more traditional the view of marriage and gender-role attitudes, and the greater the amount of economic resources provided by parents, the greater the subjects' intention to marry.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.51-59
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• 1992

Previous studies indicated that unmarried persons are subject to higher mortality than the married, and that the differentials are more marked for male than for females. There are two major approaches to explaining the marital status differentials in mortality ; selection function and protection function of marriage. Following protection fucntion, this study develops the new "instrumental / expressive sex-role" hypothesis in order to explain why marriage protects males more against death. The hypothesis expects that male's instrumental role and female's expressive role have direct effect as well as indirect effect through social integration on sex differential mortality by marital status. for the hypothesis testing, Korea and US vital statistics and census data are used to compute age-specific , age-adjusted mortality rates and their ratios for persons in different marital status. Major findings are as follows. 1)For both Korea and US being married is more advantageous to males than females, ad being widowed, divorced, and separated is more disadvantageous to males, while being never-married is more disadvantageous to females, 2) For Korea, the never married men and women have the highest mortality rates, 3) For US the never married women have the highest mortality rate, while the divorced, separated, and widowed men have the highest mortality rate. Fro both Korea and US data, selection function is rejected, but instrumental/expressive sex-role hypothesis succeeds in accounting for the sex and marital status differential in mortality.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.63-79
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that influence the willingness to marriage initiation(WMI) among the never married in their 30s. In particular, we examine the effect of financial resources on the WMI. A data set from the National Survey of Marriage and Childbirth (2009 Wave) were analyzed. We find that the effect of financial resources on the WMI are different by gender. Home ownership is a statistically significant factor in the logistic regression model for men, but not in the model for women. Women with higher earnings are more likely to be single and unemployed men are more likely to be single than employed men. In the Korean societal contexts, these findings support the bi-standard of financial resources between male and female in the marriage market.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.183-214
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to examine the psychological characteristics of affecting never married men and women through analyzing the content of in-depth interviews about the idea of marriage and the reason for never married choice. For achieving this purpose, the in-depth interview was conducted with 9 men and women aged mid-20s to late 30s who said to choose never married life for a long time, and then the content of interview was analyzed using consensual qualitative research. As a result of analyzing the content of in-depth interview, it was derived into 2 areas, 10 sub-areas, and 25 categories. The results of the study were as follows. Firstly, it was found that research participants negatively recognized the marriage and had unrealistic expectation rather than no expectation for marriage. Secondly, most of the research participants felt negative feelings about their parents' patriarchal role, and they did not want to live like their parents. They also reported that they did not see their marriage separated from their parents. Thirdly, most of the research participants felt difficulty in forming relationships with intimate person, and it became more difficult to have expectations about spouses and marriage due to repeated relationship conflict patterns. Fourthly, the research participants showed psychological aspect of experiential avoidance and seeking for individuality in terms of never married choice. Most of the research participants predicted the failure of married life, and reported that they were trying to prevent uncomfortable feelings and sufferings by choosing never married life. Also they reported that individuality considered more important than connection with others(togetherness) and individual value considered more important than collective value. Participants in this study showed negative evaluation or had negative influences on the marriage life of parents and acquaintances. This is more likely to be a passive factor in never married choice, so future research should examine the characteristics of active factors in never married choice.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.57-70
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• 2006

Patterns and changes of marriage have drawn much attention as they have been pointed out a key factor of low fertility. Nonetheless, systematic studies on marriage have been quite limited. This study, using recent nationwide survey on marriage and fertility, attempts to explain whether and how intention of marriage would differ between never married men and never married women. The logit regression analysis reveals that the likelihood of planning marriage between both sexes are still different even after controlling demographic characteristics, economic status, household and family background, and attitudes toward sex and premarital cohabitation. Furthermore, important factors affecting the likelihood of planning marriage turns out to be different between men and women. For instance, men with a job is more likely than men without a job to plan marriage. However, for women, the effect of having a job is not found. Such result, with other sex differential effects of living arrangement and attitudinal variable, suggests that the mechanism through which men and women transit from singlehood to marriage would differ. More attention on gender differential should be paid in developing conceptual arguments and conducting empirical analysis regarding marriage and its related topics.

• Journal of Family Relations
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.3-25
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• 2017

Objectives: We examined which socioeconomic and intergenerational characteristics were associated with the level of intention to marry among Korean men and women in young adulthood. Method: Data came from 351 men and 391 women who were 25-34 years old, had never been married, and had at least one living parent. We conducted multiple regression analyses by gender after controlling for age and current romantic relationship. Results: Among the socioeconomic characteristics, more years of education was linked to both men's and women's higher levels of intention to marry. For women, having a secure, full-time job was related to greater intention to marry. For men, the higher their subjective socioeconomic status, the greater their intention to marry. Among intergenerational characteristics, both men's and women's positive attitudes toward supporting elderly parents were related to a higher level of intention to marry. For men, the frequency of providing instrumental support for their parents was negatively associated with the men's intention to marry. For women, higher levels of agreement with parents' responsibility to support their adult children as well as greater affection for their parents were positively related to greater intention to marry. Conclusions: The findings suggest that young adults' socioeconomic resources and the family context are important predictors of young adults' marital intentions. The results also reveal gender differences in the factors associated with young adults' marital intentions.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.13-26
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• 1975

Seven aspects of attitude toward marriage in Korea are examined to better understand present and future marriage patterns. Also, various facets of current marriage practice are compared with attitudes. The study comprises three groups of roughly 600 women each, selected by random sampling from a rural, an urban, and a semi-urban area. A carefully designed and pretested questionnaire was checked for reliability by a reinterview in a 15% subsample. The great majority of Korean women support traditional attitudes that one must or should marry. The small group who recommend that one should not marry are mostly the very young or the never married, whose attitudes still may change. However, there are important and probably predictive shifts in favor of more individual decision, especially among the better educated, the young, and the more urban. Traditional reasons for marriage such as "custom" and procreation are ranked first by a majority, but there is a large shift to more contemporary or liberal desire for companionship and love, also primarily among the better educated, the urban, the young, and the never married. The traditional attitude that parents should have the sole or major role in mate selection is still held by a bare majority; the educated, urban, young, and never married are more liberal. Only 6% opt for each of the two extremes: That the parent alone or the respondent alone should decide. The remainder prefer one of the two middle-of-the-road positions where parent and child together decide. The proportions of respondents who classed specified criteria as moat important for selecting a husband, arranging the criteria in order from traditional to contemporary were: Lineage, etc., 23%; personal attributes, 40%; health and education, 27%; and love, 10%. The changing attitudes are suggested by the fact that love was ranked first by only 3% of the poorly educated rural poulation versus 23% of urban college level and 31% of the urban never married. There has been a substantial rise in the ideal age of marriage over the past twelve or more years, but there also is evidence that the ideal age is at or near a ceiling. Knowledge about legal age of marriage is minimal; the implications of this for proposed legislation are discussed. Three-fifthes to four-fifths of all respondents married husbands of the same religious, residential, and economic backgrounds as themselves. Almost all of them married men of the same or higher educational level. These evidences of traditional influences in mate selection are contrasted with the low priority given some of those items in earlier questions on reasons for marriage and criterion for selecting husband. Contrary to the expressed attitudes as to who should select the husband, we find that marriages of the study sample were stated to be arranged by parents alone in 62%; and in another 23%, the parents made the decision but asked the respondent's views. Such arrangements were most frequent among the rural, the less educated, and the older respondents and less common in the urban and more educated. The implications of these and related findings are discussed.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.183-194
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• 2023

The purpose of this study was to examine how sociodemographic status, family-related influences, and perceived future economic prospects were associated with the possibility of getting married and having children in a sample of 607 single young Korean adults. The sample comprised unmarried men and women in their 20s and 30s taken from the 2021 Seoul Family Report survey, and descriptive statistical and multiple regression analyses were conducted on the data. The results indicated that age, non-traditional marriage/childbearing values, parents' marital relationship during childhood, and the prospect of having a stable job and owning a home were significantly related to the possibility of marriage. With regard to the possibility of having children, a significant relationship was found with age, level of education, non-traditional marriage/childbearing values, recognition of the importance of family, parents' marital relationship during childhood, and the prospect of having a stable job and owning a home. The study also examined the importance of policies that make the possibility of marriage and having children more appealing to young unmarried adults in Korea by providing a positive outlook for the economy, a sense of stability, and a supportive approach to the value of having a family.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.220-224
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• 2004

Objectives : To investigate the sexual behavioral characteristics and HIV/AIDS knowledge among men who have sex with men(MSM), one of the HIV high risk groups. Methods : A three month survey among individuals who were able to be contacted was carried out over the entire Republic of Korea, between May and August, 2001. 348 individuals completed a self-administered question-naire. The data collected included demographic informa-tion, sexual behavior and AIDS knowledge. Results : Eighty-seven and ninety-two per cent of the 348 MSM were aged 20-39 years and had never been married, respectively. Fifty-five per cent of participants reported at least one sexual contact with women, and a quarter of the MSM surveyed had engaged in high-risk sexual behavior (more than 6 partners) during the previous year. About twenty per cent of the MSM had anal sex as their favorite way of having sex, and seventy-four per cent did not use condoms regularly due to loss of enjoyment, and were more likely to be engaged in risky behaviors. Only ten per cent had a regular HIV test history, and most had obtained knowledge or information on HIV/AIDS through the mass media. Conclusions : A large proportion of the MSM in Korea still remain at an elevated risk for contracting HIV infection. Change in high-risk sexual behaviors will prevent the spread of HIV infection among the MSM population, which requires public health education for preventive interventions, and should be culturally and socially specific in order to be effective.