• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.73-102
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• 1997

The purpose of this study was to identify the specific and empirical contents in terms of first-married stepmother about her stress and efforts to adapt to her stepfamily. This studies relied on the qualitative research method in order to approach stepmother's subjective experience. There were 6 stepmother respondents who were 6 first-marrieds living in Seoul or Kyoungki area. The data was collected by in-depth personal interview.‘Open coding process’, a part of grounded theory procedures were used to analyzed the data. The major findings can be summarized as follows: 1. When focused o stressors, the stress of stepmothers were categorized into 4 categories. Those were the following: 1 When focused on stressors, the stress of stepmothers were categorized into 4 categories. Those were the following: (1) Stepmother's own problem such as stepmother' identity problem; (2) Problems within stepfamily such as problems about relations with husbands, stepchildren, and her own children; (3) Problems of stepmother family's kin such as relational problems with former spouses, in-laws, and her parent; (4) Problems of social relationship such as isolation and alienation in social relationship and neighbors' prejudice about stepmother. 2. In overcoming stress from stepfamily life and adapting to it, 4 categories were identified as important. Contents of 4 categories were such like this: (1) Stepmother's own efforts - (a) give a positive meaning to marriage or remarriage (b) flexible personality (c) situation-accepting attitude (d) exclusive management of household income (e) job (f) perseverance for time to adaptation; (2) Positive feedback within stepfamily - (a) supportive husband (b) sense of unity as a couple (c) psychological reward from stepchildren (d) existence of stepmother's own child (e) behavior for family solidarity (f) family-centered religious life; (3) Stepfamily's relationship with former spouses such as breakdown in relationship with ex-wives or ex-husbands; (4) Support from stepmothers' kin and people in social network with stepmothers. It was concluded that to reduce stress and to help adapt to stepfamily, stepmother should make an effort, and that her stepfamily and her kin should cooperate and support. In addition, negative stereotype of stepmother and stepfamily should disappeared. It was suggested that studies on stepfamily should be vitalized and that programs for preparing remarriage and counseling for stepfamily should be spread.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.183-200
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• 1997

The purpose of this study was to identify the stress of remarried elderly in their remarried life. There were 10 remarried elderly respondents. The data was collected by in-depth personal interview. Focusing on the situation of remarried family life the remarried elderly perceived various stress. Those were the stress from the status of remarried person and the stress from relations with their own children/ new spouse/ new spouse's children/ ex-spouse and ex-kin/ sibling and relatives and friends. The results of this study could be a useful material for elderly's remarriage preparation program.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.159-177
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• 2002

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate how the information society affected the attitude about the family/kinship life of Netizen. For this goal, the data were collected from 305 Netizen who use the Internet. The major findings were as follows. Firstly, In Netizen, the support to familism and boy preference was low level. Secondly, in their altitude to the divorce and remarriage, there was a tendency which accepts a marriage with selection. Thirdly, they had a tendency to agree equal partnership in couple relationship. Fourthly, virtual community in cyber-space was found, but the loyalty of members was not enough strong. Fifthly, in the family/kin rites, it was showed non-traditional tendency. And in all aspects, some differences were found between men and women. The findings of the present study suggest that the couple relationship in the information society becomes more important, and there is a tend to increase acceptability to increase. In contrast, there is stiff another discrimination in cyber-space by focusing on traditional mother route.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.129-139
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• 2003

Living arrangement is considered an important variable in discussing loneliness and the psychological state of the elderly. From this point of view, this study aimed at Identifying the effects of living arrangements, sociodemographic variables, social activities, and social psychological variables on the psychological loneliness of the rural elderly. Though hierarchical regression analyses. the predictors of loneliness among the rural elderly were identified as single/co-residence living arrangement(r=.49), sense of well-being based on respects for others' perspectives (r: -.22), needs for remarriage (r=.22), and work hours during off- farming season (r: -.19). The effects of living arrangement remained strong and were not influenced by the addition of sociodemographic variables, social activity variable, and social psychological variables. The feeling of loneliness of the elderly who were living alone was higher than among the elderly who were living with someone else. This finding suggests that the loneliness of the rural elderly derives primarily from the lack of family Interaction. Therefore, it is recommended that social welfare policies for the rural elderly be designed to improve their family and social interactions.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.129-145
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• 2016

This study focuses on the differences in family values, which is a cause of family dissolution and conflicts of marriage immigrant women. This study was conducted on 441 women in Vietnam. It was done to explore their family values. Specifically, the following were examined: the overall family values and martial status of Vietnamese women; differences in their family values by region (northern, central, southern). The survey questionnaire consists of the following content: 'family perception'; 'gender-role values'; 'elderly parent support value'. The characteristics of family values of Vietnamese women are as follows. First, the scope of family perceived by them was relatively narrow. In particular, most of them didn't perceive the parents of a spouse as a familymember. Second, in terms of gender-roles, they perceived men and women as equal and didn't have strong perception of traditional gender roles. Third, they felt strongly about supporting elderly parents. The perception of supporting elderly parents is based on equal gender roles, instead of the paternalistic approach. They preferred financial support to living with parents. There were also differences in family values by region. Also, their values seemed to be the opposite of the ones well-known by region. In addition, their values were changing amid economic growth and modernization. Residents in Can Tho in the south - known to have open-minded Southeast Asian values - had the most patrilineal, traditional values with strong perception towards supporting elderly parents. Residents in Hanoi in the north - known to have heavy influence of Confucian culture - had non-traditional values with positive attitude towards liberal sex culture, divorce, and remarriage. Residents in Da Nang, a central region, had a mixture of northern and southern characteristics in terms of family values.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.262-280
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• 2015

The number of stepfamilies is rapidly growing in our society according to social changes. So family programs especially for stepfamily relationship enforcement with adolescents at home are needed. The purpose of this study is to investigate the direction of family programs for enforcing the stepfamily relationship between stepparents and stepchildren. For the purpose, case studies from those stepfamilies were analyzed through qualitative interviews and early developed program contens were referred. Based on discussion mentioned above, program development direction for stepfamily relationship enforcement is not only dealing with difficulties of stepfamilies in their early remarriage but also emphasizing their advantages. In conclusion, this program development direction expected stepfamilies to resolve their problems and to prevent their family break up as well as to deliver practical benefits.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.279-298
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to review the trend in international marriage of Koreans based on Census data from 2001 to 2007 and to analyse socio-demographic characteristics of the married couples. This study remarks that as the primary causes underlying the recent increase in international marriages of Koreans, the change of worldwide condition such as globalization and localization, the condition of countries to leave immigrants, the change of sex/age ratio in population, and the change of value systems are addressed. Census data from the marriage and divorce registration for the period 2001-2007 are analysed. This study covers analysis of foreign partners' nationalities, remarriage, age gap between partners, education levels, male partners' occupation, region of residence and divorce in international marriage of Koreans.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.27-55
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• 2008

This paper tries to introduce most recent trends of Korean family policies during Roh, Moo Hyun Government of March 2003-February 2008. Focusing on the gender perspectives, discussions are, for heuristic purposes, centered around three major family issues in S. Korea, one of the most dynamically changing societies in the world: 1) the abolishment of male-centered traditional Family Registry System('the hoju') and the launching of brand-new Family Record Book of five different versions for individual from January 2008; 2) the application of Framework Act On Healthy Homes, a first formal measure to step in various forms of family break-ups these days; and 3) the emergence of Multi-Cultural Family Protection Act, thanks to a massive volume of international marriage migrants from overseas. It can be said that all these family policies are the result of rapidly changing socio-demographic trends into an aging society since 1990s. These trends include late/no marriage with low birth rates, high divorce(and thus remarriage) rates, breakdown of male-breadwinner family model and increase of dual-income family, and a sudden increment of international marriage particularly in rural areas. All in all, overall trends of Korean family life these days that have been taking place so far would provide an excellent exemplary how to deal with an unprecedented societal challenges with the brand-new family policies.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.1049-1069
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to examine post-divorce adjustment and new partnership of immigrant single mother after divorce. 4 immigrant single mothers from Vietnam were interviewed and data were analyzed by qualitative method. The results were as follows. First, immigrant single mothers coped with stress after divorce through sending their children to Vietnam, working and remittance. Second, they began dating a new man in the work place who were of various nationalities, such as Korean, Vietnamese, Uzbekistan and developed partnership to remarry, cohabit or date with deep intimacy. Third, single immigrant mothers in various partnership like remarriage, cohabitation or dating were satisfied with intimate and loving relationships and support from both sides parents and the birth of new child. However, participants were anxious about the new partner's favoritism toward the biological child and discrimination against the new partner with an unfamiliar cultural background, for example, being from a like a Muslim country. The results suggested immigrant women after divorce showed various partnership on a path towards marriage and that we should pay attention to the aspects of change in multicultural families after divorce.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.606-616
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• 2015

This study was conducted in order to identify factors affecting opinions on marriage of unmarried women in their 30's in Korea. Analysis of data on 529 unmarried women in their 30's, which were taken from the 2012 social survey, was analyzed. Data were analyzed using ${\chi}^2$ test, hierarchical logistic regression analysis as well as descriptive statistics by SPSS version 20.0. Results showed that age(Exp(b)=.90,p=.025), opinions on divorce(Exp(b)=3.81,p<.001) and remarriage(Exp(b)=3.09,p=.001), and value on marriage(Exp(b)=.80,p<.001) were independent predictors of opinions on marriage. Economic activity(Exp(b)=19.58,p=.003) was found to be an independent predictor of opinions on marriage for the 35-39 year old women differ from 30-34 year old women predictors. Findings of this study indicate a need for developing family and marriage value-centered education and the low-fertility policy for the 35-39year old actively working women considering factors affecting opinions on marriage.