Family in South Korea

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The type of family, including family size, generation type, family type, and family type, has continuously changed according to changes in social structural factors. Today's families have a clear tendency to become small families externally, and internally, they are changing to prioritize the values of equal union and personal ties of humans free from values such as authority, domination, and obedience.[1][2][3] In the case of South Korea, the existing traditional family model, the extended family, has been dismantled, and the nuclear family type such as single-person households is on the rise. This is presumed to have been caused by various factors such as various economic conditions in Korea[4][5], insufficient welfare policies[6][7], and the reverse pyramid type of the population due to low birth rates.[8][9]

Modern family models

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Adoptive families

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Looking at the trend of adopted children in South Korea, domestic adoptions are gradually decreasing and the proportion of overseas adoptions is increasing. According to statistics compiled from 2012, 25.6% of adopted children were adopted abroad and 74.4% were adopted in Korea in 2013, peaking in the domestic adoption rate. However, it has continued to decline since then, and in 2020, overseas adoption has become an even number compared to 47.1% of the total, or 52.9% of domestic adoptee. In order to prevent this continued decline in domestic adoption, the government is pushing for child policies such as revising various special adoption laws, improving awareness of adoption, and expanding child support allowances for adopted children.[10][11] There is also some prejudice against adopted families in Korea. Like the fairy tale book Kongji and Patzzi, I think that the adoptive family will not treat the adopted child well. There are cases where domestic violence is suspected because they are an adopted family, or they are ostracized by their school classmates.[12]

Stepfamilies

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It refers to a family formed by remarriage or a family formed by at least one of the spouses bringing in a child born from a previous marriage.[13] Re-marriage in South Korea showed an upward trend from 1982 to 2005, and a decreasing trend from 2006 to 2013.[14] In 2020, the proportion of remarried wives is 17.8% of the total marriage rate and 15.8% of remarried husbands, making up a considerable number of remarried families in Korea.[15]

Multicultural families

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Multicultural families are the coexistence of various families within one family. In South Korea, multicultural families include international married families, foreign worker families, and other migrant families.[16] Since 2008, an average of 30,000 multicultural marriages have been maintained annually.[17] As a result, the number of multicultural students attending elementary, middle and high schools in Korea exceeded 160,000 in 2021.[18] However, statistics show that 6 out of 10 multicultural children and adolescents do not go to college. Accordingly, the government additionally supports bilingual education and language development education for multicultural families.[19] It will expand the scope of support for the development of bilingual skills for children from multicultural families to under the age of 12, and strengthen basic learning, psychological counseling, and career support to improve school-age adaptability.[20]

Changes in the number of family members (by year)

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The number of families is becoming a nuclear family from an enlarged family to a nuclear family, and the number of families is becoming a small-scale family members.[21] In 1970, the average number of household members was 5.2, and households with six or more people accounted for 43.8% of the total. In 1980, the average number of household members fell to 4.5, and in 1990, it fell to 3.7. After the average number of household members surpassed the two-member range with 2.9 in 2005, it continued to decline, recording the average number of household members in 2021. In 2021, households with six or more people account for 0.8% of the total.[22] Accordingly, the government is also expanding support for various new family types, such as single-person households.[23]

Roles and relationships

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1. Weakening the social functions of the family

Today, many countries, including South Korea, have to worry about a shortage of labor and a decrease in population due to the spread of marriage avoidance, childbirth avoidance, and divorce. The family has protected its members and provided them with a sense of psychological stability. In addition, it has performed the function of teaching children the values and norms of the society, that is, socialization.

As society changes, some of these family functions are absorbed into other systems such as specialized institutions and organizations, and their functions are gradually decreasing. In the past, the family played a role as a breadwinner, but today it is turning into a consumption community. In addition, as professional socialization and education institutions such as schools were created, the family's children's education and socialization functions were greatly weakened. The family's elderly care function was also greatly weakened. Today, there is a growing tendency to recognize the elderly care function as a responsibility of the state. 2. Social change and family problems

2. Social change and family problems

We can cite rapid social change as the primary factor in the family problem. Since the 1960s, Korea has experienced very fast and comprehensive social changes such as modernization, urbanization, and economic development, and the process is still ongoing.

Traditional families formed in the background of rural and agricultural life are difficult to adapt to urban life and industrial society. In addition, the introduction of Western values such as gender equality and democracy brought conflict and tension in family relations and life. These family adaptation problems to social changes, tension in family life, and conflict in family relations are comprehensively referred to as family crisis or 'family in crisis'.

The crisis of the family can be realized through the increasingly late marriage age, the idea that it is okay to live without having children even if you marry, the phenomenon of avoiding marriage at all, and the tendency to divorce more and more easily. In addition, this family crisis also acts as a mechanism that causes various social problems, leading to low birth rates, population decline, and aging of the population.[24]

Birthrate

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The birth rate in South Korea has been on a steady decline since 1970, when the tally began.[25] In 2018, the total fertility rate recorded zero points for the first time.[26] This continues to this day in 2022.

The success and failure of the South Korean government's population control policy played a major role in this population cliff. The South Korean government implemented a policy to curb childbirth for 20 years around 1980, when the baby boomers were called to the female population of childbearing age, to control the population.[27] Due to the influence of the policy, the total birth rate fell to 2.1 in 1984, and the total birth rate fell to the 1.5 range in the late 1980s. Around 1990, as the birth rate decreased faster than scheduled, the government eased the policy of suppressing childbirth, such as stopping support for contraception or artificial abortion. As a result, the birth rate briefly increases, but immediately the birth rate begins to fall again due to the IMF economic crisis.[28] Since then, South Korea's birth rate has continued to rise and fall slightly, drawing an overall decline. The government spent 380 trillion won between 2006 and 2021 to overcome the low birth rate, but Korea's total birth rate in 2021 was 0.81, the lowest since statistics were compiled in 1970, and the world's second lowest birth rate.[29]

The collapse of a family

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Family disintegration is one of the serious social problems in South Korea. Family dissolution means the dissolution of the family community by losing family members due to death, divorce, separation, and runaway. Broadly, it includes the weakening of the emotional function of the family, such as the bond or sense of belonging between family members, or the inability to properly perform the socialization or protection function of the family.[30] In 1970, there were many large families in the Republic of Korea, but as the large family gradually decreased and the number of nuclear families increased, most of them are now nuclear families. The type of family of "parents, grandparents, and children," which accounted for 17.4% of the total in 1970, showed a continuous decline, accounting for 4.2% of the total in 2015. On the other hand, families consisting of couples who are nuclear families increased significantly from 5.4% in 1970 to 21.8% in 2015.[31] This is also due to changes in South Korea's perception, and the ratio of "must have children" fell from 73.7% in 1997 to 46.3% in 2012. On the other hand, the consciousness of 'not necessarily having children' increased from 26.0% in 1997 to 53.5% in 2012. Among family values, parental support has also changed significantly. The perception that parental support is the responsibility of the family reached 89.9% in 1998, but it fell to 33.2% in 2012.[32]

Korea's divorce rate showed a sharp rise from 2000 to 2005.[33] From then to the present(2022), there has been a trend of repeating a small decline and rise.

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