- Author: Principal Researcher (Lee, Mi-Jeong), Co-researchers (Park, Bok-Soon / Moon, Mi-Kyung / Kim, Young-Ran / Kim, Hye-Young / Kang, Ji-Won)
- Title: Strengthening the Responsibility of Unwed Fatherhood
- Language: Korean, English
- Publication Year: 2011
- Publisher: Korean Women's Development Institute
- Sponsor: Korean Unwed Mothers' Support Network (KUMSN)
■ Summary Introduction There is a growing interest in unwed mothers raising their children in Korean society. For long, due to economic difficulties and social prejudice against them, unwed mothers had to send their children away for adoption or raise them on their own while hiding the fact that their children were out of wedlock. And the issues regarding unwed mothers were not placed high on the government's policy agenda as the very existence of these mothers was not so apparent in the society. But now fortunately, along with the increase in the number of unwed mothers raising their children (Yangyukmihonmo in Korean), there is a growing policy interest with regard to providing child support for the children of these mothers.1)
In a country like Korea where its public support system for low-income single parents is not as advanced, making sure that a non-custodial parent meet his child support obligations is critical. The process of claiming child support payment from the nonresident unwed father is similar to that of child support arrangement in a divorced family. The key difference is that a Yangyukmihonmo, an unwed mother who raises her child, should establish legal paternity of her child through the acknowledgement process before claiming the father of her child to pay child support. While divorcing couples would discuss and agree on the scope of child support responsibilities for their children in the divorce process, it is deemed that Yangyukmihonmo faces greater difficulties in claiming the payment since they do not go through such process.
According to a previous survey, when it comes to meeting child support obligations by divorced nonresident parents, the fulfillment rate was quite low at about 12.7% despite the increase in the number of divorced families in Korea. Given the low percentage of the obligation fulfillment by the fathers who had lived with their children for a certain period of time before divorce, the situation of unwed single parents with regard to collecting child support should be much more challenging.
In Korea, we have a saying that "there is no such thing as an unwed father, though we have lots of unwed mothers."2) This shows the reality where unwed mothers lose their economic viability and social reputation all at once due to the prevalent prejudice in our society against out-of-wedlock pregnancy and childbirth while unwed fathers can lead the same single life as before by not assuming their responsibilities for taking care of their children.
The question is, "Are unwed fathers in Korea exempted from fulfilling the responsibilities for their children born out of wedlock under the current Korean law?" And the answer is "Not at all." In accordance with the Civil Act of Korea, the unwed father of a child born out of wedlock shall be responsible for paying support for the child from the time of his/her birth till his/her becoming an adult of legal age. The father shall still be responsible for the aforementioned in the event where he did not agree on giving birth to the child.
Despite such legal grounds, most unwed mothers in Korea raise their children on their own without getting any child support from the fathers of their children; although they can negotiate child support arrangements with their children's fathers under the law, most of them fail to do so. Therefore, it is important to understand where Korean society stands with regard to childcare responsibilities of unwed fathers and come up with appropriate measures. Against this backdrop, this study examined the laws and institutions related to unwed fathers' child support obligations and reviewed the current status of collecting child support in Yangyukmihonmo families. When (and if) more and more unwed fathers pay child support for their children, it will not only serve as financial assistance to Yangyukmihonmo families but shed light on the importance of men's responsibilities in terms of their partners' pregnancy and childbirth.
Methodology The key methodology incorporated in this study is a survey conducted with Yangyukmihonmo, which was held between October 15 and November 30, 2011. A total of 400 copies of the survey questionnaire were distributed nationwide through Korea Unwed Mother Family Association (KUMFA), Community Centers Supporting Unwed Single Parents, maternity facilities and group homes for unwed mothers (Mihonmosiseol), and maternity homes (Mojawon). In total, 213 survey responses were collected. In the survey, we asked unwed mothers the following questions relevant to unwed fathers' child support obligations; occupation and employment status of the unwed father (the father of the respondent's child), relations with the unwed father; paternity acknowledgement; child support payment-related status; lawsuit for child support claims; intent of lawsuit, and; overall thoughts on the responsibilities to be borne by the father. We held interviews with Yangyukmihonmo who are going through the legal proceedings of applying for child support collection. Plus, focus group interviews (FGIS) with male university students were carried out on the subject of child support obligations and another set of FGIs was conducted with Yangyukmihonmo. A forum under the theme of child support responsibilities was held five times as well.
Legal Grounds for Unwed Father's Responsibilities Under the Civil Act of Korea, a man and a woman who give birth to a child out of wedlock shall be held responsible for taking care of the child, though they are not legally married. The woman becomes the mother after the birth of the child and the man establishes paternity through "acknowledgement." The unwed father of a child born out of wedlock shall be responsible for paying support for the child from the time of his/her birth till his/her becoming an adult of legal age. In the case of paternity acknowledgement by judicial determination, the Court with its authority can decide on childcare-related matters for the child, whereas in the case of voluntary acknowledgement, the Court cannot do so unless there is a request by the party concerned.
When it comes to collecting child support, Yangyukmihonmo should either come to settlements with the fathers of their children or take legal actions so that the Court can make childcare-related decisions for them. There are many unwed mothers who are reluctant to file child support claims for unnecessary fear of losing their child custody rights. However, who is the one that has raised the child is considered a key factor in designating the child's custodian, which means that the close relationship between the mother and the child is taken very seriously. Therefore, although the financial status of the father and the mother is also important, other factors such as the child's current status, parents' intent of child-rearing, affection/attachment to the child are considered more importantly. Unlike the worries of unwed mothers, the Court deems that the mother's financial problems in relation to raising her child can be addressed through the child support paid by the father.
According to the Court, in the event where paternity is established after the lapse of time since the childbirth, an unwed father who does not take care of his child shall be responsible for paying support for the child from the time of his/her birth till his/her becoming an adult of legal age. In the event where the mother is designated as the child's custodian, the Court approves the father's right of visitation to the child. But if there is a special reason not to, the Court may restrict or disapprove such right.
Starting from 2007, the Korean government has implemented a "free-of-charge legal service program for enforcing child support obligations" in an effort to strengthen the fulfillment of child support obligations. Then from 2009, it has become mandatory that couples who divorce by agreement shall fill out and submit the "child support order" that covers child-rearing and support payment-related matters. If the party concerned fails to pay child support, the Court may decide a compulsory execution against property held by the support obligor based on the child support order submitted as documentary evidence without requiring a separate lawsuit being filed.
In the revised Family Litigation Act of Korea in 2009, a new order called, "the order for direct payment of child support," was introduced in which, if a person liable to pay child support periodically fails to pay it not less than two times without any justifiable reasons, the family court may, upon an application by the obligee having source of right to execute the bond for periodically payable child support, order a person liable for withholding income tax, who bears periodic benefit obligation for a child support obligee, to directly pay the child support to the obligee by deducting the child support regularly from the child support obligor's salary. However, despite such legal procedures put in place, Yangyukmihonmo's access to lawsuits is still low, making it difficult to file cases against unwed fathers (the fathers of their children) due to various challenges such as the inability to find the whereabouts of the fathers, time taken for the legal proceedings and emotional burden of being face-to-face with the fathers.
Child Support Enforcement in Developed Countries In most countries, a parent who does not take care of his/her child shall be responsible for paying child support under law. And in most countries, single-parent families are relatively more vulnerable to falling into poverty, thus more likely to become welfare beneficiaries. In advanced countries in the 1970s, the number of single-parent families had soared, which had led to huge national fiscal burdens stemming from the increased budget to support them. Consequently, in an effort to cut down on the government's related welfare spending and reduce the dependency of single-parent families on welfare benefits, these countries began to pay more attention to enforcing child support obligations.
Most OECD countries have in place their own institutions or agencies in charge of collecting and transferring child support from a nonresident, non-custodial parent (e.g., unwed father); both the U.S. and the UK run agencies that collects child support from a non-custodial father and gives it to the mother separately or along with welfare benefits. In Germany, there is an institution called, "advanced maintenance payments," that allows the government to pay the child support on behalf of the father when he fails to or cannot pay it and collect the amount from him later. In liberal welfare states like the U.S. and the U.K., the level of public transfer income is very low and thus child support is an important income source for raising children. For this reason, those countries have long established agencies for enforcing child support obligations; the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OSCE) in the US and the Child Support Agency in the U.K.
There are countries in which the enforcement of child support orders is carried out by the Court such as France, Germany, Japan, Sweden and Korea. These countries consider child support payment as a private matter, and any issues arising from this should be addressed and resolved through the Court process. That is perhaps why they do not have separate agencies in charge of enforcing child support obligations.
Child Support Payment Status in Korea In Korea, the status of child support payment has been only partially identified through a handful of research and a survey conducted with those who use the government's child support-related legal support services. According to the survey conducted by the Korea Legal Aid Center for Family Relations in 2001, among the 91 divorced women who raised their children on their own, 28.6% reached settlements on child support with their ex-husbands, 9.9% received court rulings, 38.5% did neither come to agreements nor received court rulings, and 23.1% decided not to receive child support (Korea Legal Aid Center for Family Relations, 2001). Considering that the respondents were users of free divorce-related legal services provided by the Korea Legal Aid Center for Family Relations, only less than 40% of them came to an arrangement to receive child support at the time of divorce was indeed a surprising result.
When asked why, among the 46 women who said there were neither agreements nor court rulings made on child support at the time of divorce, 32.6% answered they did not want to contact their husbands, 26.1% said their husbands were in economic difficulties, and 19.6% said they took their children on the condition that they gave up on receiving child support. In the 2006 survey on divorced women, only 12.7% of the respondents answered they received child support (Kim et al., 2006).
According to the results of 1,022 lawsuits filed by the users of child support-related legal services provided by the government since 2007, 27% were settled/ arbitrated, 62.9% were won, and the remaining were dismissed, dropped or pending. 266 divorced women or 60.5% of the respondents who filed their lawsuits based on the government funding said they received child support from their ex-husbands at least once, while the remaining 39.5% did not receive it, not even once (Jeon et al., 2011). Meanwhile, of those who received child support from their ex-husbands at least once, 42.4% received it perioxlically on a monthly basis whereas more than 50% received it irregularly or only a couple of times and that was it, which indicates that receiving child support was not easy.
Economic Situations of Respondents In this study, a survey was conducted with Yangyukmihonmo to understand the current status of meeting child support obligations by unwed fathers in Korea. A total of 213 unwed mothers raising their children on their own participated in the survey, and the age distribution of the survey respondents was as follows; 60.6% were in their 20s, 35-2% were in their 30s, and 4.2% were in their 40s.3)
The age distribution of the respondents' children was as follows; 34.7% were younger than 1 year old, 36.5% were between 1 and 3 years old, 15-3% were between 3 and 5 years old, and 13.5% were 5 years or older. The majority of respondents' children were less than 3 years old.
The respondents were recruited from all around the country and their location of residence was as follows; 39.9% resided in Seoul, which was the highest, 22.2% in Daegu, 9.4% in Daejeon and so forth.
According to the survey, 35.2% or slightly more than a third of the respondents were engaged in economic activities, suggesting that it is hard to juggle between work and taking care of their young children. 31% said they were focused on raising their children as full-time moms. 16.4% were preparing to enter school and receiving vocational training while 13.1% said they were looking for a job. By employment type, 49.3% or less than half of the respondents were working full-time, and 37.3% were working hourly-based or part-time. This means that only some of the Yangyukmihonmos were engaged in economic activities and only half of them were working full-time, which show that their employment status is far from stable. Meanwhile, 49.8% of the respondents said they received the National Basic Livelihood Security (NBLS) benefits.
Quite a high number of Yangyukmihonmos had debts; 56.8% of the respondents said they had no debts while 17.8% had less than KRW 5 million in debt. 9.4% had debts of KRW 5-10 million and 15.9% had more than KRW 10 million in debt. The average debt amount of the respondents was KRW 4.89 million.
Combining all sorts of income raised from economic activities, welfare benefits and family support, the average monthly income of the respondents was found to be KRW 970,000. 56.8%, or more than half of the respondents, earned the income of less than KRW 1 million while 23% had KRW 1-1.5 million and 20.2% had more than KRW 2 million in monthly income.
The average monthly spending of the respondents was KRW 985,000. More than half spent less than KRW 1 million a month. 25.8% spent KRW 1-1.5 million while 19.7% spent more than KRW 1.5 million a month.
Child Support Obligations of Unwed Fathers All unwed fathers (non-custodial parents) in Korea shall be responsible for paying child support, but in reality, not many of them actually pay it. One of the reasons behind this limited child support enforcement can be found in the perception of unwed parents themselves about child support. In other words, their attitudes about how important it is for unwed fathers (non-custodial parents) to pay their child support serve as a critical factor in filing child support claims and collecting it by unwed mothers. <Table 4> demonstrates the views of Yangyukmihonmo on unwed fathers' child support responsibilities, and a vast majority of the respondents, or 87.35 precisely, felt that unwed fathers were responsible for paying child support for their children; but only less than half, or 47.9%, said the fathers were highly responsible and 39.4% said they were responsible to some extent.
<Table 5> indicates the situation of Yangyukmihormo with regard to collecting child support. Among the 213 respondents, 31 people or 14.6% of the surveyed said they received child support, 6 people or 2.8% were taking legal proceedings, and 3 people or 1.4% did not receive child support even though their cases had been closed. 22.1% of the respondents said they had the intent to file lawsuits for child support claims, and 59.2% said they didn't. According to the survey, only 14.6% of the respondents received child support, and merely 4.2% took or were taking legal actions to claim child support. A large majority of the respondents neither received child support nor took relevant legal actions. When asked if they have the intent to file lawsuits to claim child support, 126 people or 59.2% of the surveyed answered "No." Previously, 87.3% of the respondents said that unwed fathers were responsible for paying child support for their children, but in reality, a majority of them did not want to take legal actions against the fathers.
As presented in <Table 5>, the attitudes of Yangyukmihonmo about the responsibilities of unwed fathers for paying child support seemed to have a lot to do with the success in collecting it; the mothers who believed that the fathers were responsible for paying child support were more likely to collect it and were more willing to take legal actions. The findings suggest that unwed mothers who believe that the fathers of their children should pay child support tend to demand the payment more strongly and are more likely to collect it.
<Table 6> provides the information on how the 31 respondents who were receiving child support from the fathers of their children actually collected the payments, including the payment collection route, frequency, and the monthly average payment amount. 87.1% were able to receive child support based on mutual agreement with the fathers of their children, while only a few respondents received it through lawsuits. 64.5 received child support on a monthly basis, 9.7% received it irregularly only when the father got the money to send, and 19.4% received child support before but not any more now. This shows that only 20 out of the 31 respondents received child support periodically, which leaves much room for improvement. The median monthly amount of child support payments received by the respondents was KRW 325,000.
As appeared in the survey results above, only a portion of unwed mothers received child support, of which only some received it periodically on monthly basis. Moreover, most unwed mothers believed the fathers of their children should pay child support for their children while remaining passive in taking legal steps to obtain it. Therefore, the attitudes of Yangyukmihonmo about the responsibilities of unwed fathers for paying child support were found to be a critical factor in filing child support claims. Now, let's take a look at how their attitudes on the unwed fathers' child support responsibilities differ by variables.
The paternity of children born to unwed mothers is established through legal acknowledgement. When it comes to claiming child support payment, paternity acknowledgement should be taken as the first step. Among the 213 surveyed individuals, 28 went through the acknowledgement process, which was very low at 13.1% of the total. The remaining 86.9% didn't.
<Table 7> exhibits the distribution of unwed mothers based on whether or not they established paternity of their children by acknowledgement and their attitudes on the unwed fathers' child support responsibilities. According to the survey, those who went through the paternity acknowledgement process tended to feel more strongly about the fathers' responsibilities for paying child support.
As appeared in the table above, a vast majority of the respondents or 185, more precisely, did not go through the acknowledgement process. We went on to ask them whether or not they would want to take that process in the future and looked into their responses based on their attitudes on the unwed fathers' child support responsibilities; 26.5% said they would want acknowledgement in the future, and the remaining 73-5% said they wouldn't. Whether or not the unwed mothers would want acknowledgement in the future had a lot to do with their opinions about the unwed fathers' child support responsibilities; when asked if they believed the unwed fathers should pay child support for their children, the proportion of those who would want acknowledgement in the future and said "Yes" was higher than those who wouldn't.
 For those respondents who had the intent to file lawsuits to claim child support, we asked what physical and emotional barriers they face when trying to file the lawsuits. 50% of them felt that to be face-to-face with the fathers of their children and bring up the old stories between them would be tough. 27.8% pointed out the difficulties in gathering the personal ID information (address, resident registration No., etc.) of the fathers of their children.
For those respondents who had no intent to file child support lawsuits, we asked why not. 49.2% of them said, "I don't want to contact or meet the father of my child over the child support issue," which topped the list, followed by "The father of my child does not have any money to pay child support (20.6%)" and "He might demand child custody rights in exchange for providing child support (14.3%)." As presented in the survey results, unwed mothers did not want to file child support lawsuits largely because they were unwilling to meet face-to-face with the fathers of their children in the legal proceedings.
Regarding the free-of-charge legal service program implemented by the government for enforcing single-parent family child support obligations, we asked the survey respondents whether or not they were aware of this program; those who were aware of this program accounted for 46% of the total, which means that the proportion of those who weren't was slightly higher.
Conclusion The Korean law stipulates that the unwed father of a child born out of wedlock shall be responsible for paying support for the child and there are a number of precedent cases that support the aforementioned. Despite such legal procedures put in place, it seems that only a few resort to this legal remedy.
With the increase in the number of divorce in Korea, there have been growing concerns over the children's welfare in divorced families. Against this backdrop, the Family Litigation Act of Korea was amended in 2009 to clearly define the parents childcare-related responsibilities in the divorce process. Meanwhile, for the case of Yangyukmihonmo families, they should establish legal paternity of their children through acknowledgement in order to claim the fathers to pay child support. Since they do not go through separate procedures to agree on the scope of child support responsibilities like in the divorce cases, it is deemed that Yangyukmihonmo faces greater difficulties in collecting child support from the fathers of their children.
In Korea, the status of child support payment has yet to be clearly identified. According to a survey on divorced families, only 12.7% of the respondents received child support from their ex-spouses.
According to the survey, 14.6% of the unwed mothers received child support from the fathers of their children, but only 9.4% received it periodically on a monthly basis. There can be many reasons why the percentages of child support claims against and obligation fulfillments by unwed fathers are very low. But certainly, it has something to do with the attitudes of unwed mothers toward the issue. A vast majority of the respondents, or 87.3% more precisely, felt that unwed fathers were responsible for paying child support for their children; but only less than half, or 47.9%, said the fathers were highly responsible and 39.4% said they were responsible to some extent.
Except for those who received child support or who were taking legal proceedings, 27.2% of the remaining respondents, or 47, said they had the intent to file lawsuits for child support claims, and 72.8%, or 126 respondents, said they didn't, indicating that those who did not want lawsuits far outnumber those who did. Of the 31 respondents who did receive child support, 27 came to settlements with the fathers of their children through mutual consent, and the other 4 won their cases and collected it. Overall, it is deemed that unwed mothers found it difficult to pursue legal actions for claiming child support for their children.
Especially, meeting face-to-face with the fathers of their children were considered the biggest obstacles to filing child support lawsuits both for the mothers who were preparing lawsuits and those who did not want lawsuits. This implies how painful it was for them to go through emotional conflicts with the fathers over the course of pregnancy, childbirth and care. Currently the government provides single-parent families with financial assistance for legal costs and related expenses incurred to file child support lawsuits, and this study suggests the need to establish an agency in charge of collecting and transferring child support on behalf of unwed mothers.
Policy Suggestions Enhance Public Awareness of Child Support Obligations In 1990, the provision of visitation rights by a non-custodial parent was first introduced in the Civil Act of Korea. Before this, it had not been easy for the non-custodial parent to meet his/her child since the custodial parent, more often than not, would not want that to happen, consequently the provision of child support by the non-custodial parent had been quite limited. Despite legal grounds and procedures put in place for enforcing child support obligations, the level of fulfillments remains quite low. One of the reasons why such legal means are not actively pursued for collecting child support can be attributed to the parents' low perceptions about their child support obligations. According to the study, custodial parents who need to claim child support and even unwed mothers who are in desperate need for collecting child support remain passive in taking legal actions. They believe that the fathers of their children should pay child support for their children, but too few of them put that thought into action. It is time to enlighten custodial and non-custodial parents as well as the public on child support rights and obligations.
Improve Access to Legal Procedures Despite legal procedures put in place for enforcing child support obligations in Korea, Yangyukmihonmo' access to these remedies remains quite low. Compared to divorced women who raise their children on their own, Yangyukmihonmo faces greater difficulties in collecting child support from the fathers of their children; they first need to spend time on finding the whereabouts (address, resident registration No., etc.) of the fathers to establish legal paternity of their children through the acknowledgement process. While most of the unwed mothers believe that the fathers are responsible for supporting their children, they are passive when it comes to having fathers meet their obligations. According to the study, unwed mothers hardly want to file child support lawsuits because they are unwilling to meet face-to-face with the fathers of their children. This is due to the fact that they had to experience painful conflicts with the fathers during the process of giving birth to and raising their children, more so than in divorced women's cases.
Although the government provides free legal services for these mothers, it is based on the condition that they should be well prepared for claiming child support. In order to proceed with the needed legal actions by taking advantage of the limited government services, they need to have a concrete understanding of the child support claim and obligation fulfillment process. And to increase their access to legal procedures, it is necessary to provide child support-related counseling to these unwed mothers, which will serve as a platform to share knowledge and experience among those who have personal/professional experiences in this area and to case emotional pressure and anxiety over claiming child support to the fathers of their children. The counseling service and support behind it will play an intermediary role in helping to improve the legal access by these mothers.
Improve Voluntary Paternity Acknowledgement Like in the current procedures of divorce by agreement, institutional improvements should be made in the case of paternity establishment by voluntary acknowledgement to prevent any gap in the child support responsibilities that parents must take on. Putting in place a similar confirmation process to that of divorce by agreement can be an alternative; the existing agreement on designating the parent with parental rights, which is attached to the documentation submitted for voluntary acknowledgement of paternity, can be changed to the "agreement on designating the parent with parental and child custody rights" and make it subject to a mandatory submission. However, the agreement still has limitations; it cannot be used as a source of enforcement, which is different from the lasting decision on child support obligations made at the time of divorce by agreement. Therefore, the most desirable way to resolve this is to approve paternity acknowledgement by judicial determination only. That way, the Court with its authority can intervene in child support-related matters, which means that all potential legal issues regarding child support obligations can be clearly addressed once the paternity of the child is established.
Develop Child Support Calculation Formula Korea is yet to have an official calculation formula for child support. A concrete and detailed calculation formula needs to be developed to come up with the child support amount as accurate as possible by taking into account the couple's total income/wealth, average education costs, inflation, etc., and allocating the amount on a pro rata basis. The formula must be easy enough for ordinary people to understand and calculate. It also needs to be reflected in court rulings on child support obligations.
Introduce Advanced Child Support Payment Through the revision of relevant laws and regulations, we now have a stronger mechanism for enforcing child support obligations in Korea. This is an effective tool to control the child support obligors who have the financial means but refuse to pay the support, while it is not so effective for those who cannot pay due to economic difficulties. Moreover the existing system does not help address the financial difficulties that the child support obligees and their minor children may experience during the period of claiming child support.
There is a program called, advanced child support payments, which is yet to be put in place in Korea. Advanced child support payments is to allow the government to pay child support on behalf of the child support obligor when the obligor fails to pay the support on the due date, and collect the amount from him/her later in order to keep the custodial parent and his/her child out of financial difficulties. When the child support obligor refuses to or cannot pay the mandated child support, this program enables the government to pay the child support on the obligor's behalf and collect the amount from him/her later. The adoption of such program should be considered aggressively to better ensure the welfare of minor children.
Establish Agency for Child Support Enforcement Although there is a free-of-charge legal service program provided by the government for establishing paternity and enforcing child support obligations, unwed mothers find it difficult to use these services as they are simply too busy making their ends meet, taking care of their children and, more often than not, they are unwilling to meet face-to-face with the fathers of their children. They need an exclusive agency that can deal with child support claims and enforcement on their behalf. While the order for direct payment of child support is currently implemented in Korea, if the unwed father moves to another job to avoid his child support obligations, the unwed mother needs to submit the application for direct payment order all over again. That is why an exclusive agency in charge of child support enforcement should be established to execute the payment order of the Court. The organization's scope of work may include; paternity establishment by acknowledgement; child support claims; non-custodial parent search; financial investigation on the child support obligor through inquiries to the National Health Insurance, National Tax Service, financial institutions, etc.; monitoring of whether or not child support is paid consistently and periodically, and; support for compulsory execution.
Footnote -------------- 1) A non-custodial single parent who does not live with and take care of his/her child shall be liable for paying child support. In most of the cases, as the unwed mother would take care of her child, we assume in this study that the unwed father is the non-custodial parent even if there are cases the other way around.
2) The current marital status of the father of an unwed mother's child can be unmarried, married or living with a partner. In this study, the father is called an "unwed father" for the fact that he is not married to the mother of the child.
3) The survey was conducted with Yangakmihonmo aged 19 or older. There were four 19 year-old respondents and one in her 50s who were included in the 20-something group and 40-something group, respectively.
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