- Headline: "The Problem of Teenage Unwed Mothers"
- Subheading: Family Planning Seminar. Presenter: Dr. Kyoung-Ae Park
- Source: Maeil Business Newspaper
- Date of Publication: May 31, 1974
- Summary:
On the 28th, Dr. Kyoung-Ae Park of Jungbu City Hospital presented findings from her study, "A Clinical and Statistical Observation of Teenage Unwed Mothers in Korea," at the Family Planning Seminar hosted by the Planned Parenthood Federation of Korea. Dr. Park highlighted the inadequacy of sex education, noting that 90% of teenage mothers were naïve young girls who did not understand the meaning of sex. The study, conducted over a three-and-a-half-year period from January 1970 to June 1973, involved 103 teenage unwed mothers who had been hospitalized for childbirth in the obstetrics and gynecology department of Jungbu City Hospital. Among them, 31% were under the age of 17. By occupation, 26% were maids, 24% were factory girls, and 79% of the girls reported having only one male partner, while 10% admitted to having four or more. Although unwed motherhood was previously believed to occur only within the lower classes, it is now recognized as a phenomenon affecting all social classes.
The reasons for the increase in teenage unwed mothers, Dr. Park explained, include emotional instability, the death or divorce of parents, a lack of affection, rebellion against parents, fantasies about sex, the influence of mass media, and fleeting curiosity. However, she stressed that all unwed mothers act without fully recognizing their own intentional desires.
Unlike other women, unwed mothers do not engage in normal relationships. Most have only fleeting encounters, and even in cases of longer-term relationships, they show little interest in their male partners. Their pregnancies typically occur in a state of both mental and physical immaturity, resulting in higher rates of abnormal childbirth due to anxiety and nervousness. Dr. Park emphasized the importance of strengthening sex education starting in middle school to prevent the rising number of unwed mothers. Dr. Kyoung-Ae Park of Jungbu City Hospital conducted a study in 1973 on unwed mothers who sought assistance from the Christian Adoption Program of Korea (CAPOK). A year later, in 1974, another study examined unwed mothers who gave birth at Jungbu City Hospital, as referenced in this article. Both investigations contributed to framing the issue of unwed mothers as a problem rooted in "sexual promiscuity among teenage, low-educated girls" and linked to "abnormal family structures such as divorce." Notably, the diagnosis of contributing factors—dysfunctional families, adolescent girls’ sexual fantasies, and unconscious expressions of personal will—reflects a wholesale adoption of mid-20th-century Western psychoanalytic theories. Specifically, these explanations align with the pathological maternity framework used in Western theories of unwed motherhood from the 1940s and 1950s (see Young, Leontine. 1945. "Personality Patterns in Unmarried Mothers," The Family). Young's research significantly influenced domestic perspectives on unwed mothers in Korea, particularly through its inclusion in the 1960s theses of the Social Welfare Departments (formerly Social Work Departments) at Seoul National University and Ewha Womans University. These studies shaped the narrative surrounding unwed mothers in Korea. (see Kwon, Heejung. 2019. The Birth of Unwed Mothers: The History of Exiled Mothers (unofficial translation). Antonia’s Books. pp. 34, 121-128).
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