• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.40 no.9
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• pp.161-173
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• 2002

As the divorce rates in Korea have increased dramatically in recent years, it has been assumed that the attitudes towards divorce changed as a consequence. It has been proposed that people have become more accepting of marital dissolution as an alternative to unhappy marriage. The Purpose of this study is to empirically examine the assumption and to explore whether there is a rural-urban differences in the attitudes towards divorce. The data were gathered from 716 respondents who reside in Seoul and 593 respondents who reside in rural areas, using the structured questionnaire. The data analysis revealed that there exists significant rural-urban differences in the attitudes towards divorce in some aspects, suggesting the gaps in the cultural changes. Yet, rural-urban residents seems to share the attitude that one should not sacrifice personal happiness to maintain an unhappy marriage for the shake of obligation and traditional family norm.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.51-75
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• 2016

This study focuses on the life experience of married women in their 30s to 40s who have experienced parental divorce. For a comprehensive understanding towards the women, this study takes a life history research approach. The participants of this research are 8 women who have experienced parental divorce and are now married with children. The data were gathered through in-depth interviews and were analyzed through the spiral of analysis, following the process of Wolcott's "description, analysis, and interpretation." The results of this study are as follows. First, participants experienced emotions such as fear, anger, and lack of affection. Second, parenting attitude and parental divorce had negative effects on the participants' formation and development of self concept and in turn, participants experienced anxiety and withdrawal from interpersonal relationships. Some had difficulties in concentrating on their schoolwork, which was caused by psychological effects from their instable home environments and some were negligent at school due to their parents' indifference or as an act of rebellion towards them. Third, although participants displayed interest towards the opposite sex, fear towards the opposite sex or unrealistic expectations led to difficulties in forming relationships. Participants also confessed that although they married so that they could escape their original family and form a new happy one, they experienced a rocky start at the beginning of their marriage. Fourth, parental divorce had a lifelong impact on children. Even after the children became adults, parental divorce affected each key stage of transition in life such as dating, choosing one's spouse, marriage, and child rearing. Fifth, participants displayed a strong attachment to life under the assumption that only they themselves can be depended on. This led to their strong commitments to a successful marriage without the possibility of divorce. In conclusion, parental divorce is not a transitory or incidental event. Rather, it becomes a part of the children's lives with lifelong implications.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.43 no.6 s.208
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• pp.145-169
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• 2005

This study aimed to evaluate Comprehensive Croup Therapy Program developed for children and mothers of divorced families. The research questions were to determine first, any differences between program participants and non-participant in the areas of life wellbeing, attitude towards divorce, self-esteem, and communication skills as a result of this program; and second the durability of these effects three months after implementation of the program. The subjects of this study were 41 children and 14 mothers of the divorced families. Among them, 18 children and 6 mothers, including 5 mother-child dyads were assigned to experimental group, while 23 children and 8 mothers, including 8 mother-child dyads, to control group. Both groups received pre-and post-test evaluation but experimental group additionally received a follow-up test. The data were analyzed by t-test, Mann-Whitney U Test, Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks Test and qualitative analysis. The results showed that therapy Program enhanced the life wellbeing of both child and mother participants significantly, and this effect lasted for at least for three months after the termination of the program. Second, though the effects were not statistically significant, child and mother participants' attitude towards divorce, self-esteem, and communication skills between mother and child changed positively after the program and these effects lasted for over three months.

• 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.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.259-277
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• 2008

Traditional familism and family value is known as the value that most Koreans share with. Strong family solidarity and family-centered perception among Koreans influences other social values and ideology. Under the family value, caring for family members is family responsibility instead of government responsibility. Previous studies argued that the family value played a role to impede the development of family policy in Korea. The aim of this study was to explore a relation between the family value and the needs for care-support family policy. This study investigated how the family value were related to the specific needs for care-support family policy. The data were drawn from the Seoul Families Survey conducted on 2006 by Seoul Women and Family Foundation. The survey data consisted of 2,500 married males and females living in Seoul. The statistical techniques used for analysis were frequencies, means, t-test, ANOVA, crosstabs, multiple regression models, and multinomial logit models. The major findings of this study were as followings. First, while the traditional familism appeared to be held at a certain level, the general attitudes towards cohabitation, divorce, and single-parent family seemed to be less traditional. Second, the familism was found to be partly associated with the needs for the care-support family policy. The respondents who had less traditional value on arriage and child-rearing showed the higher level of needs for daycare center. This finding implied that nontraditional attitudes were related to the needs for an alternative care service such as caring through facilities rather than to the needs for supportive or complementary services. Lastly, the respondents who had higher level of traditional familism showed a higher preference for direct economic service (supportive service) than for other types of service in child care. And the less traditional their attitudes towards marriage and child-rearing, the more likely they are to prefer flexible child care services and programs to other types of child care services. These results implied that the family value was partly influential to family policy. However, it is worthy to note that the family value was related to family policy preference rather than to family policy needs. In other words, traditional family value appeared to influence the types of family policy rather than the level of needs for family policy.