• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.251-261
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• 2020

This study aims to suggest a new perspective that can account for variations in fertility rates across OECD countries. Most previous literature has highlighted the influence of government policies on fertility rates. This study focuses the role of job strain, unequal division of household labor, and life satisfaction on fertility rates. These factors are related to work-life balance, and play a crucial role in understanding variations in fertility rates across OECD countries. Using fuzzy set qualitative comparative research analysis (fsQCA), this study tests whether fertility rates can be explained by differences in the levels of job strain, gender equality at home, and life satisfaction across countries. The results are as follows: First, high fertility-countries show low levels of job strain, equal division of household labor, high levels of life satisfaction, and high levels of GDP. Second, a high level of GDP is not crucial for achieving high fertility rates. This study suggests that changes in working conditions and organizational culture are required to increase the fertility rate in Korea, since this can influence work-life balance, life satisfaction and equal division of household labor.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.215-235
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• 2018

Policy concerns related to raising fertility rates are not only common interests among the OECD countries, but they are also issues of great concern to South Korea whose fertility rate is the lowest in the world. The fertility rate in South Korea continues to decline, even though most of the national budget has been spent on measures to address this and many studies have been conducted on the increase in the fertility rates. In this regard, this study aims to verify the effectiveness of the detailed factors affecting the fertility rate that have been discussed in the previous studies on fertility rates, and to investigate the overall trend toward enhancing the quality of life and increasing the fertility rate through macroscopic and structural studies under the recognition of problems related to the policy approaches through the case studies of the European countries. Toward this end, this study investigated if a high quality of life in advanced countries contributes to the increase in the fertility rate, which country serves as a state model that has a high quality of life and a high fertility rate, and what kind of social and policy environment does the country have with regard to childbirth. The analysis of the OECD Better Life Index (BLI) and CIA fertility rate data showed that the countries whose people enjoy a high quality of life do not necessarily have high fertility rates. In addition, under the recognition that a country with a high quality of life and a high birth rate serves as a state model that South Korea should aim for, the social characteristics of Iceland, Ireland, and New Zealand, which turned out to have both a high quality of life and a high fertility rate, were compared with those of Germany, which showed a high quality of life but a low fertility rate. According to the comparison results, the three countries that were mentioned showed higher awareness of gender equality; therefore, the gender wage gap was small. It was also confirmed that the governments of these countries support various policies that promote both parents sharing the care of their children. In Germany, on the other hand, the gender wage gap was large and the fertility rate was low. In a related move, however, the German government has made active efforts to a paradigm shift toward gender equality. The fertility rate increases when the synergy lies in the relationship between parents and children; therefore, awareness about gender equality should be firmly established both at home and in the labor market. For this reason, the government is required to provide support for the childbirth and rearing environment through appropriate family policies, and exert greater efforts to enhance the effectiveness of the relevant systems rather than simply promoting a system construction. Furthermore, it is necessary to help people in making their own childbearing decisions during the process of creating a better society by changing the national goal from 'raising the fertility rate' to 'creating a healthy society made of happy families'

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.705-709
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• 1996

A simplified dilutor for cock spermatozoa at ambient temperature was achieved by adjusting the 5% concentration of fructose in isotonic saline. Motility of cock spermatozoa was arrested completely for maximum 6 hrs without affection the survivability of spermatozoa by employing this sugar. To study the effect of high concentration of fructose on fertility, sperm were inseminated with or without fructose at different hrs. Fructose from semen samples was removed by centrifugation. High fertility obtained in the hens inseminated with fructose free sperm (washed). In addition, washed sperm maintained the 85.00% fertility for 6 hrs in winter season ($17-21^{\circ}C$) and 82.67% fertility for 3 hrs in summer season ($31-35^{\circ}C$). Whereas control groups showed 47.33 and 25.33% fertility in winter and summer season respectively. No significant difference was found in percent motility and live counts between the control and washed experimental groups during winter season. However, these measures differed significantly in summer. Washing of cock spermatozoa more than once, high speed centrifugation and more duration for centrifugation proved harmful to fertility. It may be concluded that fructose (5%) can be used as a motility or metabolic inhibitor of spermatozoa for short-term storage of cock semen at ambient temperatures.

• Korean Parent-Child Health Journal
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.67-79
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• 2017

Purpose: This research aimed to study the awareness of marriage, childbirth, fertility and high-risk pregnancy among university students. Methods: 250 university students from Seoul and Gyeonggi-do completed questionnaires regarding their awareness on marriage, childbirth, fertility, and high-risk pregnancy. Results: The average age of participants was 22.5. The ideal marriage age was 29.8. 201 (80.4%) participants had an intention of getting married, and 160 (60.4%) answered they should have children. The ideal age of first childbirth was 30.4 and last childbirth was 35.1. There were 126 (50.4%) with prior education regarding high-risk pregnancy, subfertility or infertility. The score of needs for education associated with pregnancy was 7.6 out of 10. The average correct answer rate of awareness of fertility issues was 30.7%. There were significant differences between men and women, 25% of men and 38% of women overestimated the age at women are most fertile. Only 23.7% of men and 25.9% of women knew the correct age when there was marked decrease in women's fertility. Conclusion: Awareness of a lack of marriage, childbirth, fertility, and high-risk pregnancy may influence future family planning and health. These results can be used to plan programs or education for marriage, pregnancy, and childbirth.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.9-14
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• 2014

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of the intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection (IMSI) technique compared with conventional ICSI and previous ICSI attempts in oligo-astheno-teratozoospermia (OAT) patients. Methods: The sperms were selected under high magnification ($6,600{\times}$) and used to induce fertilization in previous ICSI patients by IMSI. These results were compared with previous conventional ICSI cycles in patients with OAT infertility. Results: These results demonstrated no significant difference in the fertilization rate between IMSI and previous ICSI cycles (67.7% vs. 65.0%). However, the pregnancy and implantation rates with IMSI were significantly higher than those of the ICSI cycles (33.3% vs. 12.5% and 14.6% vs. 5.4%, respectively; p<0.05). The miscarriage rate among pregnant patients (18.2% vs. 37.5%) showed no statistically significant difference between groups. Conclusion: Compared to conventional ICSI, this study found that IMSI increased the IVF-ET success rates in patients with OAT.

• 대한생식의학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.121.2-122
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• 2006

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 1985

To secure a higher percentage of fertility in hatching eggs and a higher percentage of hatchability of the fertile eggs should be of direct benefit to poultry breeder ana hatchery operators. This study was carried out to estimate the relationships of egg production and fertility in broiler breeder. The data analysed were the record of pullets (5 strains) of broiler breeder raised at Poultry Breeding Farm, Seoul National Univ. from 1982 to 1983. Since the purpose of the study was only to find out the relationships between egg Production and fertility, many other factors thought to be included in fertility were fixed as much as possible. The results were summarized as follows. 1. Mean figure of egg production rate and fertility from 30 weeks age to 60 Weeks of age to 60 weeks of age were 60.5-65.2 percent and 82.7-87.9 percent. 2. Correlation coefficients between egg Production rate and fertility were high and positive, except line K, and the coefficients have highly significant differences. 3. Regression coefficients of fertility on egg Production rate were 0.54-0.97, except line K. 4. Maximum fertility age estimated from the polynomial regression equation were 44-47 weeks. The results obtained in this study suggested that the selection of high performance strain in egg Production should improve the fertility.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.65 no.1
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• pp.22-29
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• 2020

Rice is very sensitive to high temperatures during the reproductive stage, particularly during the flowering and anthesis periods. To determine how high temperatures result in sterility during the flowering period in Korean rice cultivars, groups of 11 cultivars were subjected to different temperature regimes (24, 28, 30, and 33℃) during the flowering stage using sunlit phytotrons. At an average of 33℃, all 11 rice cultivars reached anthesis earlier than at the other temperatures. Microscopy analyses revealed significant differences in pollen germination and pollen viability in cultivars grown at 33℃ compared to those cultured at lower temperatures. At 33℃, the cultivars had significantly lower fertility rates (47% reduction) than cultivars grown at 24℃. These findings are important as rice pollination and fertility depend on the pollen viability and germination. The present study shows that rice fertility is negatively affected by excessively high temperatures.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.15-23
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• 2020

This study aimed to analyze effects of non-regular employment rate and female employment rate on fertility rate in OECD county. We adopted dynamic panel model after classifying OECD county to high and low fertility rate. The results of analysis showed that the higher non regular employment rate, the lower female employment rate, and the lower economy growth rate decrease fertility rate especially in low fertility rate country. While, only the higher house rental decrease in high fertility country. This results indicate that low fertility country including Korea should improve a labor policy such as strengthening employment security and encouraging female employment to increase fertility rate.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.339-347
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• 2014

This paper was examined socio-demographic characteristics influencing married women's fertility plans in Korea. Few studies have focused on fertility plans by using census data, and therefore this study employs 2010 census 2% sample data. It focuses on differential characteristics influencing not only whether women have plans for additional children but also how many additional children women plan to have. Women's age, age at marriage, employment status, number of children, and number of sons are consistently associated with their fertility plans and planned number of additional children. The educational level is positively related to plans for additional children for both men and women, and the effect weakens or disappears with an increase in the planned number of additional children. The result showing consistent positive effect of the number of sons reflects son preference in Korea. Positive effects of women's high educational attainment and employment status on fertility plans may reflect the importance of economic stability but requires further research.