- Author: Principal Researcher (Kim, Hye-Young), Co-researchers (Lee, Mi-Jeong / Hong, Seung-A / An, Sang-Soo / Sun, Bo-Young)
- Title: Korean Public Opinion Survey on Unwed Mothers and their Children
- Language: Korean, English
- Publication Date: May 2009
- Publisher: Korean Women's Development Institute
- Sponsor: Korean Unwed Mothers' Support Network (KUMSN)
■ Summary Ⅰ. Introduction Childbirth outside of wedlock (of single mothers) is estimated to be about 6,000 to 10,000 children in Korea per year. However, the exact number is unknown. Even though the socio-cultural values of Korea emphasize awe and dignity on life, the reason for this is originated from the social norm that legitimizes pregnancy and childbirth only through the legal relation so called "marriage." Accordingly, the sexual experience and childbirth by unmarried couples are considered to be completely private, yet, at the same time, is considered to be serious matter that brings disgrace especially to family.
However, as the age of first sexual experience gets low and society starts to accept sex openly, taboo on premarital sex is significantly eased. Under the social circumstance that admits grown-up’s premarital sexual relationship as a personal choice, the tendency to admit grown up’s premarital sexual relationship gets alleviated that it is ethically wrong and sinful. Nevertheless, different from the changing perspective, public view on women who become pregnant and give childbirth as a single mother is still not favorable, often leading to the denial of women’s civil and maternal rights. Such social prejudice and inhospitality affect single women who give up raising the child after birth with temptation of abortion. As a result, Korea, where abortion is illegal, records approximately 350,000 to 1,500,000 abortion cases per year. The number is very striking compared to the annual birth rate of 600,000 to 800,000.
The wrong perspective toward special groups of people often brings the lack of intimacy or constant social distance based on certain attributes, value, or external characters that they hold. Sometimes, the wrong perspective induces material disadvantage, subjective deprivation and discrimination by taking their life opportunities or rights away directly and indirectly (KWDI, 2004). Single mothers are branded as a fringer in a sense that they disobeyed the social norm and gave birth outside of the sacred marriage system which solely provides legitimacy.
This condemnation does not only intimidate single mothers psychologically, but also make them feel separated from society. Needless to say, psychological pressure acts as a structural barrier that keeps single mothers silent, prohibiting them from making accurate remarks or asking for support during their current conditions. Even though most of societies do not give single mothers hospitality, the degree and way of social acceptance and view on single mothers vary by the socio-cultural differences around women, sexuality, and the family system. Therefore, it is worthy to give serious consideration to the social prejudice and degree of stigma in a sense they result from differences in policy.
However, in Korea, it is hard to find a study on Korean’s perspective and attitude toward single mothers and their children in spite of many previous studies on single mothers. There exists only one previous study on the attitude of local single mothers in Jeju Island. This study was limited to 543 local people in Jeju and is not enough to be applied as generalized attitude of Koreans (Moon, Eui-Seug, Lim, Ae-Doek, 2005). Moreover, many previous studies have all pointed out negative consequences; from social prejudice to its stigma toward single mothers and their children. However, any scientific approach of finding the degree and true reason for social prejudice has not been tried. Therefore, this study examines the degree of acceptance, perception and attitude of Koreans toward single parents, overall public opinions on the direction of political measures and priority.
Ⅱ. Methodology and characteristics of the sample 1. Reserch Design In order to study Koreans’ perception and attitude on single parents and their children, this study conducted a survey of 2,000 adults in the age group of 20 to 70, extracted from the 2007 national resident registration in proportion to square root of ages by 10 years, gender, and population.
The reason for this allocated sampling by square root of city, age, gender, population is that the distribution of sample is too widely spread to acquire the representativeness of the region under the normal allocated sampling method. However, this allocated sampling by square root minimizes the sampling error among different regions by reducing deviation of population and enables obtaining samples with representativeness. Accordingly, by adjusting deviation between the collected samples and the population of the resident registration with weight, this sampling method enables obtaining equivalence of each sample.
For effective sampling, we randomly selected samples from City, Gun, Gu in the first stage and then extracted Eup, Myun, Dong samples systematically in the second stage. Each Household sample of the samples has been selected by the interviewer’s random sampling. In the sampling process, we have a limited number of City, Gun, Gu samples up to 50 and Eup, Myun, Dong samples up to 15 with the principle of one person per one household. In particular, interviewers conducted an interview with appropriate respondents in the each sample of Eup, Myun, Dong but allowed an interview of two people in one apartment building. In case of single family homes, interviewers interviewed one person by 10 households interval. The final distribution of samples by region is reported in Table 1.
In the meantime, the survey questionnaire was constructed by KWDI and was reviewed by a group of professionals. This study was conducted by a professional research company through face to face interviews with a household visit during one month period from 2009/1/15 to 2009/2/15. After the data cleaning process, 2,000 responses have finally been retrieved and used for this analysis. While applying weights on the population (the 2007 national residential registration) and surveying samples by metropolitan areas, age, and gender, the data was analyzed with SPSS Win Ver. 13.0.
2. Demographics In order to find out social perspective toward single parent, we divided residential areas into metropolis, middle/small town, and rural area. Also, the survey was conducted on 2,000 adults from the age group of 20 to 70. Accordingly, it is necessary to examine the various socio-demographical elements such as age, education level, marital status, monthly income bracket, and religion.
First of all, in terms of the age distribution, a majority of the sample was in the age group of 30 and 40. 25.3% of men and 24.9% of women were in their 40s and 24.9% of men and 24.3% of women were in their 30s followed by the age group of 20s (21.4%, 20.5%), 50s (17.7%, 18.0%), 60s (10.7%, 12.3%). In terms of men’s education level, a majority of them had college degree or higher (48.4%) followed by high school degree (41.7%), middle school degree (7.4%), and less than elementary school level (2.5%). However, for women, more than half of the women in this sample were high school diploma holders (54.7%) and followed by college degree or higher (31.4%), middle school education (8.8%). Compared to the level of education of men, women’s education level was relatively lower than men’s.
For the marital status of the sample, most of them, have married before (72.4% for male and 79.7% for female). Most of those who have married before are still in the status of married including some in the status of cohabitation, separated, divorced, and widowed. According to the distribution of the job status, a majority of men were in the service/retail sector (29.7%) followed by the management/office job (25.4%) and the technical/skilled labor job (14.2%). Unlike men’s job distribution, 35.3% of women were full-time housewives and 35.2% of women were in the service/retail job followed by the management/office job (13.2%).
For the monthly family income of the respondents, both men and women had a similar distribution. The category of three million won is the most crowded category which included 34.4% of men and 31.1% of women, followed by the category of two million won (23.6% of men, 23.2% of women) and four million won (16.6% of men and 17.9% of women). In this sample, the monthly family income for men was slightly lower than that of women and the mean of the monthly family income of this sample was little higher than the national average household income (2,895,756) which was reported by the National Statistics Office in 2007. Probably, it was related to fact that most of the respondents were in the age groups from 20s to 40s, which reflected little over-representation of the groups that earn more income.
Even though there was possibility of over-representation, most of the respondents rated them as middle class (73% of both men and women) followed by the lower class (25% of men and 23% of women) and only less than 3% of the respondents rated them as upper class. As a result, the downward rating pattern appeared and the reason for this was related to the middle class oriented perspective of respondents.
Lastly, according to the regional distribution of the sample, most of the respondents were living in a big city (45% of men and 47% of women) followed by medium sized or small cities (39% of men and 38% of women), rural area (16% of men and 15% of women).
Ⅲ. Analysis 1. Korean’s perception on unmarried mothers In order to examine Koreans’ perspective toward unwed mothers, we asked the level of agreement on statements that frequently stigmatized unwed mothers. From the result, the most distinguishing feature was that most Koreans generally brought the decision making and the lack of responsibility of the unwed mother into question rather than the intrinsic value or sexual immorality of unwed mothers. Most Koreans pointed out their lack of decision making or their lack of responsibility, but not because they were sexually immoral or having a personality defect. In addition, only 44% of respondents agreed with the statement that being unwed mother decreases their ability of self support.
It seems to be that Koreans’ attitudes toward unwed mother, which pointed out the lack of decision making and the lack of responsibility, was very much related to their conservative sexual consciousness. As shown in Figure 1, the Korean only accepted pre-marital sexual relationship among those who arranged a marriage, but prohibited actual consequences of the pre-marital sexual relationship such as cohabitation, pregnancy, child birth, and abortion. In other words, it is acceptable having a pre-marital sexual relationship among those who have had arranged their marriage but it is more desirable to get pregnant and to give birth to a child after they legally married. Accordingly, our society shows a social distance toward the unwed mother who didn’t meet the social expectation, not because of their sexual immorality but because of their lack of responsibility /decision making.
These perspectives toward unwed mother/father eventually made Koreans think that it was necessary to have a social support system for the unwed mother and legal support for the responsible unwed father by focusing on the fact that unwed mothers and fathers were not the object of moral blame but the consequence of their actions could cause tremendous misery to their children out of wedlock. In Figure 2, it was evident that many respondents expect the number of unwed mother/father will increase rapidly. In addition, their views on both unwed mother and unwed father were almost identical.
2. The social distance toward unwed mothers Generally, many previously established psychological studies have only focused on how people stereotype and build their prejudice toward the minority group based on their group identity, but they have neglected how people, who were in the minority group and the target of prejudice, acknowledged those discriminations. Needless to say, it is a more effective solution for the problem of prejudice and discrimination not by examining the internal characteristics or the degree of discrimination that the group who are actually discriminated but by focusing on the degree of the prejudice and the perception of the ordinary social members. For this reason, this study tried to reveal, instead of focusing on the discrimination that unwed mothers might feel, how ordinary people in our society perceived unwed mother and father and how they distantiated themselves from other groups in our society.
(1) Discriminatory perceptions toward unwed mothers
First, asking how unwed mothers feel after being discriminated in Korea society, we tried to compare between the perceptions toward various minority groups and the discriminatory perceptions toward unwed mothers. The results showed that the group facing the most discrimination in our society was the gay/lesbian group followed by the unwed mother, foreign workers, and the disabled (Figure 3). The discriminatory score toward unwed fathers who caused childbirth was lower than the score of unwed mother. Even though the discriminatory perceptions toward the homosexuals and unwed mother were higher among female than among male (p<.01), there was no statistically significant difference by age, education, and family income level.
In addition, we thought these discriminatory perceptions also accompanied various difficulties to the groups which faced discrimination. For example, the child rearing of the most discriminated groups such as homosexual family and unwed parent was subjected to horrendous conditions. It is also necessary to point out that, for the children of single parent, it is harder to raise children after divorced than for children to grow without being discriminated against. However, the most difficult condition among these was the condition that they, as an unwed mother or an unwed father, lived and reared their children – have to be the bread earners and the primary caretaker of the family. This trend of responses increased as age gets older.
(2) Social acceptance and distance toward unwed parents
In order to examine favor toward unwed parents, defining unwed parent as a form of family, we asked respondents how much they willingly agree to have various families as their neighbors. The neighbor aversion scale represented the unwelcome feeling as a neighbor: from 5=ask to move out to 1=be friendly with them as a neighbor. Higher score on this meant stronger negativity. In Figure 5, it was represented the score of neighbor aversion scale toward various families.
As shown in Figure 5, the highest score of the neighbor aversion scale as a neighbor was toward the homosexual family followed by the problem of extramarital sex within family and the unwed family. It seemed that there were lower scores toward the divorced family and the remarriage family. The aversion score toward ‘unwed parent’ was higher than remarriage family (t=6.12, p<.001) and marriage immigrants (t=4.89, p<.001). And, it is statistically significant (from the results of paired samples t-test).
By analyzing gender differences on negativity toward various families, there existed a significant gender difference only toward single parent family (t=2.09, p<.01). Usually, men (M=2.37, SD=.77) had more negative feelings than women (M=2.30, SD=.77). For the matter of age difference, the negative feeling toward the single parent family was statistically significant only people in their 20s and 50s – rest of age groups did not hold any statistical difference. Based on the marital status of respondents, the married had more conservative attitude than the unmarried, especially, there was a remarkable difference toward the homosexual family and the family that has extramarital sex problem. In addition, the married had more negative feelings toward the single parent family than the unmarried did which was statistically significant (M=2.27 vs. M=2.36).
In order to examine the degree of the negative attitude toward those who had various sexual experiences and numerous marriages, we examined how people were unwilling to consort with such people as their future marriage partner. It reveals that there exists bare acceptance but more negative attitudes toward those who had more various sexual experiences and many marriages. In details, there was a highest negative attitude toward one who had a history of homosexuality and the degree of negative attitude was also higher toward ‘a single parent w/child’, ‘one who divorced w/child’, and ‘one who had a history of cohabitation.’ Especially, the degree of negative attitude toward single parent was much more higher than one who divorced w/child and one who had a history of cohabitation (t=18.86, p<.001; t=6.84, p<.001).
When the results are divided by gender, there is no difference of the order and the degree of the negative attitude. However, it is statistically different between the negative attitude toward ‘one who divorced w/o child’ and ‘one who divorced w/child’. In other words, compared to male respondents, more female respondents are likely to show their negative attitude on these categories. The results by age also show similar patterns but there are considerable differences toward ‘foreigner to consort with.’ This means that as respondents get older, they are likely to have more negative attitude toward foreigners and it also indicates that respondents in their 20s have less degree of negativity toward foreigners (M=2.41, SD=.73).
Regardless of marital status, negative attitude to one who had a history of homosexuality is the highest followed by single parent. The negative attitude toward these groups is not statistically different whether the respondent is married or not. However, there was a significant difference between a foreigner and one who has a history of cohabitation with the married and unmarried. The unmarried respondents are likely to show lesser degree of negative attitude.
Finally, in order to examine the negative attitude as a future marriage partner, we asked the degree of acceptance as a future marriage partner while controlling others. The degree of negativity was measured by the four point scale from 1=no problem as a future marriage partner to 4=give up as a future marriage partner. Higher score on this meant high negativity. In results, the negativity score to those who had a history of homosexuality is the highest and the negativity toward unwed parent is the second highest among other groups. The negativity toward unwed parent was higher than one who had a history of cohabitation and it is statistically significant (t=7.05, p<.001).
However, there is no gender difference on this question and it means that both male and female have similar negativity pattern on their future marriage partner. If it is compared to each age level, there was no significant difference in their responses. But, there exists a significant difference on the category of foreigner as their future marriage partner. In other words, younger generation have a lower level of negativity toward foreigner as their future marriage partner, but the negativity increases while respondents get older.
The results reported in Figure 6 are based on respondents’ marital status. There was no difference between the married and unmarried on the categories of ‘divorced single’, ‘divorced w/child’, ‘unwed parent’, but there exists a significant difference on the categories of ‘one who had a history of homosexuality’, ‘one who had a history of cohabitation’, and ‘foreigner’. From these results, it is evident that there is a considerable perception difference between the married and unmarried on such issues.
Then, it is necessary to find out how these negativities toward the single parent family are represented as the social distance. Usually, the social distance is regarded as the perceived distance between social strata. It is usually measured by the amount of contact between groups, in other words, is measured people’s willingness to participate in social contacts of varying degrees of closeness with many other social groups (Bogardus, 1928).
Bogardus launched the first empirical study by applying this social distance concept and he tried to measure the varying degrees of sympathetic understanding, which presented among people, as a social distance. However, strictly speaking, this scale does not measure objective or structural factors but rather measure the subjective feeling of an individual. In terms of measuring one’s subjective perception toward specific groups and other social strata, it is often considered as one attribute of the social distance attitudes.
Basically, the social distance scale, which applies Bogardus and Westie’ questionnaires, tends to construct social relationship by applying such stages from official relationship to a private relationship or from being acquaintance to allowing to accept as a family member (Kim 2004). The social distance toward a single mother was measured by asking two questions involving ‘relationship as a coworker’ and ‘relationship as a neighbor’. Firstly, in order to find out a general interest of the respondents toward a single mother, we examined the response rates on each category. Figure 7 represents the response rates on each type of questions.
Figure 7 reveals that the social distance toward a single mother only allows to have a lesser intimate relationship and it means there exists a higher degree of social distance toward a single mother. Two thirds of the respondents (65.7%) respond that they are willing to just say hello to them as a coworker and 70.5% of them also show that they are willing to just say hello to them as a neighbor. In contrast, there is only 20% and 28.1% of respondents who are willing to have an intimate relationship with them as a coworker or a neighbor.
In order to compare these results demographically, we examined the social distance by the marital status, gender, age, and education level. Here, lower score means a higher degree of social distance. By gender, there is a significant gender difference only in the category of coworker (t=2.03, p<.05). In other words, male (M=2.17, SD=1.16) tends to have a higher degree of social distance compared to female (M=2.28, SD=1.16). Next, we compared it by the respondent’s marital status and it is revealed that the married have a significantly higher degree of social distance compared to the unmarried. And, this is also true not only as a coworker but also as a neighbor.
By the age groups, the results are shown in Figure 8. From Figure 8, both types of social distance as a coworker and a neighbor are significantly lower in the age group of 20s and there are also significant differences in the age groups of 30s and 40s. If the education level increases, the level of social distance tends to decrease but it is not statistically significant.
Lastly, in order to examine what are the predicting variables for the social distance toward a single mother and to explore which factors are the best predictors, I analyzed a correlation matrix among each variables. The social distance in this analysis is the mean of the summation of total scores as a coworker and a neighbor. Table 3 represents the results of correlation analysis between all the predicting variables and the social distance measure.
As shown in Table 3, people, who have more conservative and discriminatory sexual perception, tend to consider it as a highly mattered issue. Having had strong traditional sex roles, having had traditional family ideas tend to produce a significantly higher social distance score. HS and BS are also positively related with the social distance scale. Especially, people who consider women to be protected, having had traditional sex roles, and having had strong BS which regards women as an intimate partner are more likely to have the social distance toward a single mother. However, people who support the varieties of family are less likely to have the social distance toward a single mother. In other words, if people who have a leniency toward the divorce, second marriage, and single parent family, they tend to show a lesser degree of social distance.
In order to find out the best factors which predict relatively high on the social distance toward single mother, we adopted a multiple regression model. The results are reported in Table 4. Having had a higher level of paternalistic sexism (sexual discrimination) increases the level of social distance and having had a strong traditional family value also increases the level of social distance.
3. Koreans’ attitude for the appropriate support of unwed mothers In order to examine Koreans’ attitudes for the appropriate support of unwed mothers, we asked the respondents to imagine a hypothetical situation in which they found out that one of their family members had been impregnated after being separated with her boyfriend. In this question, we asked more substantially by asking them to apply this hypothetical situation to their extended family. In results, 38% of the respondents said that they will give advice to marry with the baby’s father for the baby. It is interesting to see this because we can read out of a face of our society from the results. We can identify that the pregnancy is a strong precondition of the marriage in our society from the fact that a majority of the respondents still give advice to women who got pregnant to marry ex-boyfriend although they got separated already. It strongly shows that the pregnancy, child birth, and child rearing are the vital /fundamental grounds of the marriage in our society. The fact that men (41.6%) are likely to have this kind of attitude than women (35.1%) is also another face of the patriarchal values of men. Of course, there is also age difference on this question; 20s (31.9%), 30s (39.8%), 40s (37.2%), 50s (41.9%), and 60s (44.1%). In general, the older generation, compared to younger people, tends to mark higher levels of agreement on these questions. It is also noteworthy that there is a difference by the marital status. For example, only 32% of unmarried respondents, compared to 40% of the married, said they are willing to give advice to marry. Throughout these results, we can confirm that men rather women and the married rather the unmarried have a more conservative value of marriage.
(1) Response to their son and daughter’s premarital pregnancy
It is necessary to examine respondents’ responses on the matter of their sons and daughters’ premarital pregnancy by age and gender. In order to do this, after we divided into four types of hypothetical scenarios; teenage son, teenage daughter, son in his 20s, and daughter in her 20s, we asked how they react to their son or daughter’s premarital pregnancy. The reason for these hypothetical scenarios is constructed to identify any difference on their responses.
On the case of teenage daughter, a majority of respondents said that "they will force their daughter to have an abortion after having discussed with the parents of the baby’s father (36.6%)" followed by "they will force their daughter to have a abortion without any discussion with the parent of the baby’s father (21.4%)." Most of respondents prefer to make their daughter to have an abortion with or without any counseling with the parent of the baby’s father than their daughter having a baby.
On the contrary, for the case of teenage son, most of respondents are likely to have an abortion after having discussed with the parents of the baby’s mother (45.1%) and followed by "let them marry and allow them to have a baby under their guidance (23.4%)", "force to have an abortion without any counsel with the parent of the baby’s mother (14.6%)."
For the case of teenage son, about half of the respondents agreed on abortion but still 23.4% of the respondents supported to child rearing. Compared to the case of the teenage daughter, this is considerably different. In other words, from the perspective of the parents of a teenage girl, they prefer their daughter to have an abortion rather than become a single mother. However, from the perspective of the parents of a teenage son, they show ambivalence perspectives in which the parents tend to prefer the abortion as well as support childbirth and child rearing (20% of them agreed give birth to a child).
These conflicting attitudes also confirm that even though our society has tried to remove sexual discrimination, and tried to pursue persistent gender equality, there still exists a reasonable amount of inequality in the domain of sexuality level. In other words, for the case of the daughter, one prefers not to put their daughter as a position of an unwed mother, but for the case of son, it seems that there is a relatively little flexible toward the premarital childbirth of son. According to the fact that 20% of the parents of boys answered to let them have a baby, it can be interpreted as that it is rooted in the underpinnings of the patriarchal system and is based on the societal leniency toward the unwed childbirth of sons.
On the other hand, if we turn to the issues of unwed childbirth of son/daughter in their 20s, the results are different from the results of teenage father/mother. On the case of the daughter in her 20s, most of respondents respond that they will let them get married them and let them have a baby (48.5%) followed by "absolutely respect their daughter’s decision (24.8%)", "force her have an abortion after discussed with the parent of the baby’s father (14.2%)." On the case of son in his 20s, the results are very similar to the case of daughter. More than half of the respondents said that they will let them get married and have a baby (51.5%)" and followed by "absolutely respect their son’s decision (27.6%)", "enforce to have an abortion after discussed with the parents of the baby’s mother (12.1%)."
It is common for both cases of the son and daughter in their 20s that majority of people are likely to let their son and daughter to have the baby. It can be interpreted that majority of people respect their son and daughter’s right and competence as a parent. However, on the response of "absolutely respect their son or daughter’s decision", they tend to respect son’s decision more than daughter’s decision. It also reveals that the expectation for the son’s role as a father would be stronger. These results can be read out as many people positively respect the right and competence of their son and daughter in their 20s. According to the results, about one fourth of the respondents said they will respect their son (27.6%) and daughter (24.8%)’s decision and this can be read out as they tend to distantiate themselves from their adult son and daughter’s childbirth decision.
Consequently, parental attitudes toward the premarital childbirth differ by their son and daughter’s age. On the case of teenage pregnancy, it is revealed that they prefer to have an abortion so that they can prevent their son and daughter becoming a single mother or father. On the case of the son and daughter in their 20s, it is identified that most of parents are willing to let their son and daughter to get married and have a baby. These results can be interpreted as the burden and the negativity of being a parent in the teenage period which is considered as an early period of life or development of growth and a period of socially unstable period. And, for the case of the son or daughter in their 20s, it can be interpreted as that they tend to show their tolerance toward the out of wedlock childbirth of their son or daughter in their 20s. It is true that many people agree with the response of "absolutely respect son or daughter’s decision" on the case of the son or daughter in their 20s, but it is not true on the case of teenagers. From this, it is confirmed that the general attitude toward teenagers’ childbirth is not positive at all.
(2) Opinions about Responsibility and Attitudes of Single-Fathers
The following questions were constructed in order to examine how people think about single fathers’roles, responsibility and attitude. People were asked what men are to do when women have a child due to premarital sex but marriage is impossible. Majority of the respondents (45.5%) have shown a strong agreement about single-father’s responsibility by answering "One must perform father’s role although one give up the child’s parental right and custody." One third of the respondents have agreed with "one should provide the cost of childbirth and rearing only" (34.4%) thus expressed that partial and passive father’s role and responsibility could take place partially and passively. However, when active and passive responses about carrying out the role of father are combined, eight out of ten people agree with the responsibility and the roles of single father. Other minor opinions were "One should raise the child whereas women only play the role of mother" (9.9%), "One should raise the child and women should give up all the rights to the baby" (4.9%), "One should only pay for the cost of childbirth and pretend nothing has happened afterwards (3.9%)".
By age group, it was shown that the younger the respondents, the greater they agreed with the responsibility and roles of father; 46.8% in 20’s, 50.0% in 30’s, 45.3% in 40’s, 42.0% in 50’s, and 41.6% in 60’s. However, there is no difference in their responses by the education level. On the other hand, according to the household’s monthly income, it was shown that the greater one’s monthly household income was, the higher the respondents’ agreement was on the father’s responsibilities: less than two million won (43.1%), two million won (42.7%), three million won (46.1%), four million won (46.8%), and more than five million (29.8%).
By gender, a majority of men answered "one should carry on the roles of father despite the fact that one give up his parental right and custody" (47.2%) followed by "one should only provide the cost of childbirth and rearing" (33.5%) and "one should keep the child and let women to let play only the role as a mother" (8.9%). Women respondents also showed a similar pattern; "one should carry on the roles of father despite the fact that one give up his parental right and custody"(44.2%) followed by "one should keep the child and let women to let play only the role as a mother" (35.5%). Thus, the result of both men and women was not so different. However, men tend to recognize the greater responsibility as a father (47.2%) than women did (44.2%) and also that men are more sensitive to the issues such as the responsibility of single father and the roles of father.
By the respondents’ marriage status, unmarried respondents answered "one should carry on the roles of father despite the fact that one give up his parental right and custody" (49.3%) followed by "one should only provide the cost of childbirth and rearing" (34.4%) and "one should keep the child and let women to let play only the role as a mother" (8.4%). For married respondents, on the other hand, 44.6% of them answered "one should carry on the roles of father despite the fact that one give up his parental right and custody" followed by "one should only provide the cost of childbirth and rearing (34.6%)" and "one should keep the child and let women to let play only the role as a mother (10.5%)." Responses showed father should practice his roles/responsibilities – no matter whether that action is active or passive – were shown greater among unmarried respondents (83.7%) than married (79.2%).
(3) Difficulties of Single Mothers and Fathers
Respondents were now asked their opinions about the issue of single parent, assuming that it is the case of their own family members or relatives. To begin with, we asked what type of difficulty will be the biggest barrier when respondents’ own child becomes single mother/father. The majority of respondents chose "Financial burden due to child rearing" (40.0%)" followed by "Neighbors’ or society’s scorn and the fact that they become shunned by them (22.9%)," "Restrictions in one’s occupation (17.7%)," and "Marriage problem that child may face in the future (17.5%)" therefore financial problem was shown as the biggest barrier. This means people are worried about the financial ability of a single mother/father when one needs to rear the child in the condition that one has not fully settled into the society. Moreover, two respondents out of ten showed their concerns toward the social prejudice against single mother/father and this clearly proves that prejudice against single mother/father still exist within the society and has not been improved much. This, in other words, leads us to the fact those two factors: 1) financial support for the child rearing and 2) change in social prejudice need to be solved in order to improve single mother/father issue.
On the other hand, responses related to the financial issue of rearing a child has shown a similar result among both men (40.9%) and women (39.1%), meaning that both men and women regard financial issue as the most important issue. In age groups, compared 20 ~ 30s (respectively 36.8% and 38.7%) and 40s ~ 60s (43.0%, 41.4%, 40.6%), it is revealed that the younger generation concerns a greater financial burden than the older generation. Married respondents (41.1%) concern greater burden for financial issue than unmarried respondents (36.7%).
(4) Social Protection and Support for Single Mothers /Fathers
In this section, we examined how Koreans perceive who should have first priority in social protection among the following groups: the poor, unemployed, handicapped, elders, single mother/father, and the divorced parents. Priority of people who are socially weak and should receive government’s support turned out to be: the handicapped (38.5%), elders (26.8%), unemployed (19.5%), the poor (7.5%), single mother/father (6.3%) and the divorced parents (1.5%). This answer reflects the categories of social security system in which they prioritize handicapped first and followed by elders, unemployed, the poor, and so on.
However, the fact that respondents’ low perception about the necessity of social support for the poor clearly shows how Korean people think about the social security system. In case of western societies, Social Security started from saving the poor has a long history. However, in Korea, it is only a short time since the social security system was established. Therefore, the mutual agreement about the protection of the poor is relatively low. On the other hand, the necessity of social support for the single mother/father was not so high compared to the other groups. This reflects not only the fact that Korean society thus far has had very little interest of single mother/father but also the reality that the society has not emphasized social protection for them.
In general, responses about the necessity of social protection for single mother/father turned out to be quite high (3.24/4-point scale). About the contents of the social protection, respondents agreed with the idea of making policies to prevent single mother/father rather than actively support them. For instance, high rate of agreement was shown on the statement, "Government should focus more on the laws to prevent single mother/father rather than to protect them (3.4)" and "Harmful contents on the internet need to be regulated in order to prevent teenage single mother/father (3.35)."
On the other hand, relatively low rate of agreement was shown dealing with the government’s active political support compared to other categories. Statements such as "Government should actively run a job placement program or special job placement system for single mother/father so that they can rear their child (3.16)," "Government should provide living-costs to single mother/father so that they can support themselves (3.18)" proved this. This also explains the reason why single mother/father issue has not been discussed publicly and there was not enough discussion about political policies in reality. However, statements - such as "There should be a systematic policy that allows teenage single mothers to attend school education (3.30%)," "There should be a campaign within the public institution or social organization so as to improve and change people’s perception toward single mothers and their child (3.31)" - have shown high agreement about returning to school and campaigns for changing the perception. High level of consent was also shown in the statement about single-father’s responsibility, "Policies should be reinforced in order to levy stronger rearing responsibility to men who deny looking after single mother or rearing the child (3.30)."
In contrast, responses about the statement, "Restrictions on abortion should be mitigated in order to prevent increasing number of single mothers (2.98)" have shown the lowest agreement rate. The response varies by the characteristics of the respondents on this abortion related statement. The older the respondents, the higher the consent and the lower the education level, the higher the consent level. According to the respondents’ marital status, unmarried respondents showed a higher consent compared to the married and in accordance with the household income, households with lower income showed a higher consent with the policy mitigation on the restrictions of abortion.
Lastly, we asked which policy that Koreans seem to consider as the most needed one for single mother/father. The result was: "providing jobs/locating jobs for single parent (25.4%)" first ranked and "education and nurture support for the child of single mother/father (22.6%)" coming in second. "Enhancing facilities for protecting teenage single mother/father (18.0%)," "residential support for single parent (14.7%)" and "educational support for teenage single parent (8.2%)" followed as well. Needless to say, financial support and child-rearing support were recognized as the most important policies. Especially, providing jobs and supporting single mother/father’s child rearing provides both realistic and materialistic foundation for them to raise their child thus they are very essential. Furthermore, policies which provide residence and support for school education should be seriously considered and taken when Korean society tries to solve the issues of single mother/father. Referring to the fact that western societies are fully supporting single mother/father with their residence and school education in order to enable them to rear the child, this needs to be emphasized more and thus should be taken into deeper consideration.
Ⅳ. Conclusion Previous studies thus far dealing with the conditions of single mother all have pointed out that financial problems as well as society’s negative perception caused single mothers to give up rearing the child. In this aspect, bolstering financial policies for single enable rearing their children but also illuminate the prejudice within the society taking place as soon as possible. However, the fact that there was not enough scientific approach about society members’ prejudice against single mother makes us unable to discuss about how much Korean’s perception/prejudice toward single mother has been changed to what extent. Surely, it is true that the views about single mother/father and premarital sexual relationship have been changing in the mass media. Nevertheless, we need to be cautious and it needs to be examined how much these changes shown in the mass media actually reflect the reality of Korean society.
From the analysis of Koreans’ perspective toward single parent, people nowadays do not define single mother as sexually dissipated or have problematic personality, but people tend to agree with the fact that single mother’s lack of responsibility and decision making. Therefore, people do admit the existence of single mother/father as their neighbor or coworker. However, it is hard to say that people have string ties or desire to have one with single mother/father. In other words, strong stigma to single mothers and their children can hardly be found but it could work as a barrier for single mothers and their families to develop formal and informal network in the community.
In this aspect, single mothers and fathers bear a burden as they have to live their best in order to prove themselves to others in the community. By showing their best, single mothers and fathers can not only remove people’s negativity toward themselves, but also they can change their images as individuals who plan their lives and live successful lives. Also, members of the community need to realize that Korean society is becoming more democratic and multi cultural society where individuals can choose various lifestyles to live. Thus, instead of taking strategies of social discrimination and exclusion, members of the community should cultivate their tolerance toward any differences based on the characteristics of the individual or group so that they can embrace and accept them. Furthermore, we need bold actions in changing the policies for protecting single mother/father – although they were not considered to be the priority in the survey. The fact that support for teenage and mid 20’s single mother/father will enable them to be independent earlier than previous single mothers/fathers, shows that it is necessary to adopt strategies to enlarge the supporting range.
Finally, it needs to be pointed out that the issues of single mother/father are highly related with Koreans’ narrow minded sexual culture and family system. In 2005, atypical family forms have already reached over 30% in Korean societies and the typical nuclear families which consist of parents and children are only 42%. Increasing numbers of international marriage after 2000 have weaken Korea’s "pure-blood" perception and people’s romantic expectation about marriage have been changing. Therefore, it is obvious that the perception, in that childbirth can only be accepted under the institution of family, needs to be changed. For instance, even though there was a low agreement about mitigating restrictions on abortion, there was a relatively high agreement among respondents that they will recommend abortion to a teenage girl who is pregnant. These two show the clashing views of Korean’s views on abortion.
On the other hand, almost half of the respondents answered that one would allow the adult daughter to give birth to a child under the condition that her sexual partner will marry. This also shows the attitude that pregnancy and childbirth can only be accepted within the system of family. However, the fact in which even a couple who loved each other and have children are divorcing is no more a target of criticism and it shows that Korean society is changing. This means that the Korean society needs to accept single mothers/fathers and child-rearing. No matter what situation the next generation is in, they are a great value to Korean society thus right of giving birth given by parent’s marital status or right of rearing the children would make Koreans very closed minded and conservative which that does not take low birth-rate into consideration. Therefore, various campaigns to change people’s perception are needed.
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