Earticle

The purpose of this study is to identify the perceptions of and willingness for marriage among people in their 20s and 30s. The data came from the Korean General Social Survey of the Survey Research Center at Sungkyunkwan University. The sample data set included 292 men and women aged 20 to 39. The major findings are as follows. First, gender, satisfaction with oneʼs household economic conditions, and significantly affect the individualsʼ perceptions of marriage. The results show that the menʼs education level, value of family succession, value of gender roles, and value of parentsʼ role are the significant factors that affect their perceptions of marriage. In the case of the womenʼs perceptions of marriage, the significant factors are their household economic conditions, value of family succession, value of gender roles, and value of childbirth. Second, the willingness for marriage among unmarried people is decided by age, education level, whether one has an income or not, satisfaction with oneʼs household economic conditions, and value of oneʼs childbirth. Overall, gender is the most significant factor that affects the perceptions of marriage among all the other variables. However, menʼs and womenʼs values of gender roles and family succession, respectively, both significantly affect their perceptions of marriage but show opposite coefficient directions. Another finding shows that unmarried people who are willing to marry tend not to have children. This implies that they do not perceive the decision on having a child as a necessary factor behind marriage decisions.

The purposes of this study were to identify the factors that affect the life satisfaction of unmarried one-person households and to examine how these factors influence this population. This study targeted 308 unmarried one-person households. The results found the following: one-person households without marriage experience had higher levels of job stress than one-person households with marriage experience, and the level of differentiation of family projections was lower; the overall level of life satisfaction was higher in one-person households without marriage experience than in one-person households with marriage experience; in one-person households without marriage experience, higher life satisfaction correlated with higher levels of self-integration, family projection processes, and family retirement differentiation, and lower job stress, which was correlated with higher self-control ability, higher evaluation and higher material support; and life satisfaction was found to be higher in unmarried one-person households that received more information and had a lower age, lower job stress, and higher monthly income. This study contributes to the literature in that it explores how marital experience interacts with demographic variables, occupational factors, psychological factors, and social support factors and consequently affects the life satisfaction of unmarried one-person households.

The purpose of this study was to identify the factors that affect middle-old aged housewives' participation in lifelong learning as a part of human resource development. Through purposive sampling, the study recruited 163 full-time housewives over age 40 years who live in C City. As a result, first, 87.1 percent of all respondents, or 142, said they were willing to participate in lifelong learning in the future. There was no statistically significant difference in the results of cross-checking by age, educational background and monthly household income variables. Additionally, we used cluster analysis to measure differences in participation intentions according to the perception of human resource development of middle-old aged full-time housewives. The perception variable of lifelong learning is: First, Cognitive degree, second, importance, third, activation awareness. Cluster 1(n=16) was divided into generally low- perception types, such as cognitive degree, importance, and life-long learning activation of the C city, while Cluster 2(n=61) was classified as a type of person who thinks that lifelong learning is important to life and Cluster 3(n=86) was generally classified as a type with a higher lifelong learning perception. and we found that there was no difference in the intention to participate in lifelong learning by all cluster Lastly, we found that participants who valued human resource development scored significantly higher on measures of cognition than those who did not value it. Based on these results, we advocates social change that encourages the cultivation of talent through lifelong learning programs that can positively affect one's unique identity, not just wife and mother, and provide opportunities for self-development.