Earticle

This study explores the grandchild-rearing experience of grandmothers whose children are part of dual-earner couples. Twelve participants provided in-depth interview data that were analysed according to Spradely’s ethnographic method. We present three main themes in our research, as well as ten smaller themes: (i) the grandchild-rearing motive (from the perspective of the adult, the child, the grandchild, and the grandmother); (ii) the mode of grandchild-rearing support (residential, total weight of childrearing support, availability of a daycare center); (iii) the change in the grandmother’s way of life (positive changes and negative changes). Finally, this study examines the integrity of the grandmother's identity as their productivity increases through providing grandchild-rearing support. It also looks at the importance of governmental policies that support their burdens according to the level support they provide.

This qualitative study focused on the motives and patterns of child care leave by analyzing its facilitating and constraining factors. Fourteen participants were interviewed in-depth using non-structured interview questions. Motives for child care leave include mothers' active choice, mothers' inevitable secondary choice, and mothers' instrumental choice. The patterns of child care leave in terms of total period, time, and distribution vary according to individual circumstances and occupational culture surrounding child care leave for female workers. Female workers will occasionally use this child care leave as a rare opportunity to take a rest during their labor lifecycle and to achieve work-family balance.

This study investigate the balance between work and family of married working women. Data from 12 married working women who have child(ren) in age 7-9. was collected through in-depth interviews. The interviews was to examine their child-caring and the balance between work and family. The results show that the child(ren)'s age, the quality of after school program, the time to go to work and out of work, the type of work and labor flexibility were the important factors which affect the everyday child-caring. The respondents were unsatisfied with their balance between work and family, especially they felt that their leisure time is insufficient, but they seemed to accept this unbalance to some extent because they recognize the child-caring is more important than their balance between work and family in this life cycle. In conclusion the public support for the child-caring of dual-earner families with the child(ren) in low grade has to be more extended because the support system and services for this life cycle are weak and insufficient compared with the support system for the child(ren) of the lower grades. The currently public services for child-caring are still far from their needs to achieve the balance between work and family. So the whole child care support policies and systems are to be continued with more balanced perspectives and practical programs.

Purpose of this study is to draw policy implications for family resource management’s strategies and leisure culture revitalization to Korean baby-boomers. This study review leisure activities characteristics of Korean baby-boomers and find their characteristics’ impact on leisure economy. This research analyzed with raw data of “National Research Leisure Activities 2012” in different methods: analysis of frequency, multiple regression analysis, Correspondence Analysis, and etc. As a result, compared to all age groups in Korea, Korean baby-boomers current participation in leisure activities is low, but their expense on leisure is high. Their leisure activities are varied from different genders to their incomes. Especially, baby-boomers, who are on high income, participate in wasteful leisure activities and their consuming behavior will be the mainstream of Korean leisure economy, so economy, which is aiming for baby-boomers, will be invigorated when the economy is more concerned with use values toward time. Particularly, preparing for the retirement of baby-boomers, further researches based on integrated family policy should be considered plans and efforts on encouraging active volunteer works and participation in leisure culture revitalization of Korean baby-boomers.

The main objective of this study is to explain the differences in intergenerational resource transfers among the middle-aged at various income levels. Analyses of data on financial resource transfers from the 2nd wave of the Korean Retirement and Income Study were conducted. The study sample consisted of 931 middle-aged individuals who had at least one living parent and one child. The data analysis methods were χ2 analysis, one-way analysis of variance(ANOVA), logistic regression analysis, and multiple regression analysis. Financial resource transfers are statistically significant factors explaining the preparation for later life and life satisfaction of middle-aged individuals. The empirical results reveal that the frequency of intergenerational financial transfers was significantly higher in high-income households than in middle- and low- income households. A comparison of high-, middle- and low-income households shows that financial resource transfers had a greater influence on the preparation for later life and life satisfaction of the middle-aged in middle-income households than in low- or high-income households. The level of life satisfaction was dependent upon to whom middle-aged individuals gave financial resources. In the middle-income group, the middle-aged who gave financial resources to their parents were more likely to have higher life satisfaction than those who did not. Receiving financial transfers from parents or children did not have a statistically significant impact on the life satisfaction of the middle-aged in any income-level group.

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.

The purpose of this study was to enhance the marital relationships of middle-aged couples in their 50s who either had retired or were approaching retirement and to develop marriage-enrichment program that would help them maintain a happy and satisfactory family relationship. In-depth interviews were conducted with middle-aged couples in their 50s who had enrolled in the program. Developed based on the relevant literature and our own needs analyses the program was organized into three areas, family relationship, life management(time, leisure), and life plan for old ages. The program consisted of five sessions of 120 minutes each. Participants attended the program’s lectures and activities. Pre and post-tests were conducted to examine the program’s effectiveness. The post-test results showed improvement over the pre-test results, so we can conclude that this program would appropriate for improving the marital relationships of middle- aged couples in their 50s both before or after their retirement.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influences of household income, education needs, private education expenses and expenditures of preparation for old age for mothers of school-aged children and to discover the causal relationships among these variables. The subjects in this study were gathered from among 393 mothers living in Daegu with school-aged children from 8 to 19 years old and with wage-earner husbands. The research tool was a questionnaires which addressed the general characteristics of the subjects, household income, the scale of education needs, the scale of private education expenditures, the scale of perceived burden of private education, and the scale of expenditures of preparation for old age. In order to analyze the study data, factor analysis, and regression analysis using SPSS were used, and structural path analysis using AMOS was used. The main results of this study were as follow:First, the greater the household income, the greater the education needs. Second, household income and education needs had no significant influences on private education expenditures. Third, education needs and private education expenditures turned out to have significant effects on the perceived burden of private education expenditures. Fourth, expenditures of preparation for old age among mothers of school-aged children was influenced by the education needs, private education expenditures and perceived burden of private education expenditures. The household income of mothers of school-aged children had no significant influence on private education expenditures. Finally, education needs, private education expenditures and perceived burden of private education expenditures for mothers of school-aged children had a direct effect on the expenditures of preparations for old age. On the other hand, in mediating education needs, household income of these mothers had an indirect effect on expenditures of preparations for old age. The perceived burden of private education expenditures turned out to have the biggest total effect on the preparations for old age of mothers with school-aged children.

This study examined the mediating effects of couple communication on self-differentiation and marital satisfaction among married women. The ANOVA, correlation and the multiple regression analysis were used to figure out the relationships and the mediating effects of those variables. The results revealed that self- differentiation was significantly related to marital satisfaction. Also, couple communication was revealed to be a partial and full mediator between self-differentiation and marital satisfaction. The results were as follows. First, there were differences in couple communication and marital satisfaction. Marital satisfaction showed differences according to socio-economic variables such as educational level, occupation, family income, and the years of married life. Educational level and family income made differences in couple’s communication. However, socio-economic variables did not make any difference with regard to self-differentiation. Second, there was a significant correlation among all sub-factors for self- differentiation, whole self-differentiation, married couples’ communication, and marital satisfaction. Third, the result shows that the mediating effect of couple communication between self-differentiation and marital satisfaction. Couple communication completely mediated the relationship between cognitive vs. emotional function, family projection, emotional cutoff, and marital satisfaction. It also partially mediated the relationship between family regression and marital satisfaction. In addition, there was a tendency to partially mediate the relationship between general self-differentiation and marital satisfaction. The results suggested that self-differentiation and couples communication should be considered together when explaining marital satisfaction among married women. Also, the results implied the importance of the increased self-differentiation and the better couple communication in women’s marital satisfaction. Finally, this research suggested the necessity of counseling services to enhance the self-differentiation as well as couple communication programs for the marital satisfaction of women.

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.