• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.103-115
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• 2003

This study develops and evaluates a mother-child relationship improvement program for poor female-headed families. The program consists of seven sessions including various physical and educational activities. The goals of this program are (1) enhancing emotional support, health, and physical intimacy among the female heads of households and their children, (2) understanding each other's wants and personalities, and (3) facilitating the communication skills and increasing knowledge on adolescent sexual development. Four mothers of poor female-headed families and four adolescent children of them were participated in the program. The result of the program evaluation shows that this program had positive effects on improving mother-child relationship and their Interaction.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.153-167
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to investigate the difficulties, conflicts, and communications between female-headed single parents and their children, their child rearing methods and attitude, and the political suggestions for the welfare in those families. The in-depth interviews were conducted for 7 women in Gyonggi-Do and Chungnam-Do on March 3-27, 2003. The interviewees were selected for the mothers whose children were enrolled either elementary schools or middle schools. The contents of interviews were receded to be analyzed by qualitative method. The results were as follows; first, female-headed single parent families were in low economic status with unstable employment condition. Secondly, women in that families were confronted with psychological problems because of their multiple roles and low income. Third, although they had a controlled child rearing method, they used much reinforcement and praise. Thirdly, they were in need of the aids for the basic life such as housings and their children's private institute expenses. Finally, they required the repealing of an existing birthright system.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.65 no.1
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• pp.175-199
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• 2013

This study was to investigate working experience of poor female-headed families in social enterprise focusing on empowerment process. For this study, nine female-headed women were interviewed and the collected qualitative data were analyzed through phenomenological research method. Main results of this study provided eight main construct factors, such as the intersection of hope and unhappy, economic independence through being alone, finding myself strong and worthy, consciousness of horizontal bondage, trouble situation, professionalism and pride, capacity to problem solving and self-importance of contribution to society. Based on the results of this study, working experience of poor female-headed families in social enterprise was strengthened from personal level and relational level to social level. Therefore, various policies and practical programs should be prepared to improve empowerment of female-headed families in poverty working in social enterprise.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.44
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• pp.146-177
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• 2001

One of the difficulties of female-headed families face is economic hardship. Low-income single mothers work long hours, become isolated and feel burdened for dual roles. And many of them don't have relatives to share parenting roles. As a result, children of low-income female-headed families are easy to be neglected and left to form a delinquency-prone group in neighborhood. Traditionally, it has been viewed that children in female-headed families have problems due to the loss of father role. However, study indicates that these children can adjust well if the relationship between mothers and children is consistent and adequate. An Intervention program for low-income female-headed elementary children was developed and delivered in two community social welfare centers. The purpose of the program is to raise self-esteem. Two goals were 1) management of daily living habits and 2) improvement of family relations. Social workers maintained contact with mothers to talk about children's behaviors and to prompt hugging and touching. In addition, workers helped children to form good relationships with peers and school teachers. Children were satisfied with the program. Their family relations were improved statistically significantly after the program(wilcoxon signed rant test z=-2.934 p<.05). However, their self esteem were not improved significantly (wilcoxon signed test z=-1.173 p>.05). Qualitative analysis of each children were also discussed. The implications of the study are the followings: Intervention programs need to be delivered separately for low-grade and high grade elementary children because they have different developmental needs. The program also need to include education on sex and marriage as well as aggression reduction. Society needs to provide more support to single mothers for their personal and parenting needs.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.54
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• pp.295-319
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• 2003

The study starts from the critical thought on why most of female-headed single-parent families are under poverty regardless of their hard working. The study is to explore the lives of low-income single-parent families as working poor and to develop comprehensive policies for them out of poverty and other social vulnerability, using the concept of social exclusion which has been broadly introduced in the field of social science. Specifically, the study aims to analyse the process of social exclusion of low-income single-parent households, by comparing the differential lives in the economic, social, political aspects among male-headed dual-parent household, female-headed single-parent household, and poor female-headed lone-parent household who is under the public poverty line. The study was based on the secondary data analysis. A total of 3182 samples(the first 2508, the second 235, and the third 439) were included. Using SAS 6.12, frequency, chi-square, means, and ANOVA were utilized for the statistical analysis. Results show that single mothers, on the whole, are vulnerable population in terms of employment, housing stability and income. Also, low-income households of single mothers are more negatively affected by the IMF economic crisis and carry more pessimism on their future. In comparison with male-headed households, single mothers have fewer support from social insurance as well as family resources and higher burdens of additional caring need for the old, the disabled, and the chronically ill. These findings identify the reality in which female-headed households with dependent children are exposed to the overall social vulnerability and thus are easily trapped into the social disadvantaged. finally, the study suggests the development of comprehensive policies and counter-measurements for low-income female-headed families to be the primary member in our society.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.73-87
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to investigate the economic deprivation of male-headed or female-headed households. Household having children under the age of 18 are categorized into three types according to the gender of household head: male-headed household, female-headed household, and dual-parents household. The findings from data, for this study came from the Korean Labor Panel Study in 2003. The analysis shows that the household's age, education, residence types, etc are key explanatory variables in determining whether to be in poverty. While the public income transfer is most effective in reducing poverty in female-headed households, the private income source is relatively more useful among male-headed families. Since single-household families are particularly at risk, public policy makers should pay special attentions to developing and expanding welfare-to-work programs which provides work incentives to overcome relative poverty and community networks on child care.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.41-52
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• 2023

This study aims to discuss the role and function of social capital in explaining social risk perception among female-headed households. This study analyzed the level of social risk perception and its determinant factors of female-headed households using 2020 Social Survey data from Statistics Korea. The analysis revealed that socio-demographic factors and social capital influenced the perception of social risk. In addition, the social capital related to social safety was associated with the level of social risk perception. Even after controlling for various factors, the social risk perception level among female-headed households was higher than among male-headed ones. Among female-headed households, social capital such as compliance with regulations or ability to cope with risk; demographic factors such as age, residential area, and health status; and economic factors such as income level and housing type were found to affect social risk perception. Based upon the findings this study devises ways to accumulate social capital that can be obtained in cooperative relationships between families and communities.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.48
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• pp.82-112
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• 2002

This study investigates the causes of poverty in Korea since the 1997 Economic Crisis by analyzing the composition and characteristics of the poor by the types of families. While the poor largely consisted of disadvantaged groups, such as the aged, the disabled, or the female-headed families before the Crisis, families headed by working-aged and non-disabled adults have represented a larger portion of the entire poor since the Crisis. The higher overall poverty rate in 1998 mainly resulted from the rapid increase in the number of the unemployed and the high poverty rate of their families. In 1999, the larger number of the unemployed poor exited from poverty by getting a job in the labor market, contributing to the reduction in the overall poverty rate. The significant number of families headed by working adults were poor in 1998, and the size of these working poor was not reduced in 1999. The poverty among this group has been caused by lowered wage rates and deteriorating job security. The findings from this study suggest that anti-poverty policies in Korea be improved to provide better income and employment assistance to the non-working poor and, more importantly, be extended to effectively reduce poverty among the working low-income families.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.61 no.4
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• pp.333-354
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• 2009

This study decomposes the gender differences on poverty to explain the causes of the poverty gap between male- and female-headed households. In order to do this, we start from examining the extent of the poverty gap between maleand female-headed families and then conduct decomposition of poverty differences by gender using the Oaxaca method. This paper uses the (Urban) Family Budget Survey data from 1982 to 2008 and measures poverty using 50% of the median income poverty line. Major findings of this study are as follows: First, in 2008, the coefficient effect explains 70% or more of the total gender-poverty gap. Second, the trend of gender-poverty gap in the period of 1982~2008 shows that the poverty gap by gender increased in the 1980s', decreased in the 1990s', and a re-increased in 2000s'. Third, comparing the decomposition results in 1982, 1989, 1999, 2008, we found that the share of characteristic effect of the total gender poverty gap has been increased gradually over time. It means the characteristics of the female-headed households have become worse than those of the male-headed households in urban working families. At the same time, the still large coefficient effect suggests that the problems such as the discrimination against matriarchs or the lack of social support for them still play important roles among urban working families in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.223-243
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• 2002

Female-headed household is one of the common family type in the changing Korean society. This study explored and described the coping strategies of poor female household heads who were in struggle with economic, physical, and emotional problems. The data was gathered by in-depth interviews with fifteen poor female heads of households. In the process of qualitative interview and analysis, the coping strategy was emerged as an important theme. The major strategies which the poor female heads had adopted were as follows. First strategy was making up their minds to live as heads of households to keep their children in the fence of family. Second was accepting that any husbands would not be helpful in general. Third was developing independence, which meant providing their families on their own labor without expecting the support from social network or welfare system. Forth strategy was giving the present situation a positive definition: it gave them the emotional comfort.