KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

Family, a unit of social, economic, and cultural life that includes gender and intergenerational relationships, is an important forum connecting individuals with societies and has a crucial relationship with social changes. Moreover, gender, intergenerational relationships, and income level are at work in a complex way. This study observes family changes along the axes of gender, generation, and income level, identifies policies needs that arise in the process of change, and deduces policy objectives and challenges.

For our analysis, we used the Society Survey and Time Use Survey by Statistics Korea, Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families by Korea Women's Development Institute, Korean General Social Survey, and National Marriage and Birth Trend Survey, with the following results on family changes: Family changes were noticeable in all key areas, structure, relationship, values, and caring, but the degree of change varied depending on gender, generation, and income level. Regarding the changes in family structure, the ratio of unmarried people increased for both males and females. For males, in particular, there was a big increase margin for those in their 30s and 40s. In terms of generation, it is noteworthy that single households increased in all age groups, with the biggest margin of increase among males in their 40s. For the income groups, the lowest income group had the highest ratio of single households. As for average number of people in a household, the lowest income group had the lowest figure while the highest income group had the highest figure.

Level of satisfaction in family relationships showed a consistent trend across 6 areas of satisfaction – spouse, children, parents, spouse's parents, siblings, and overall family relationship. For generations, the level of satisfaction was the highest in 20s and 30s in all areas, whereas the 50s and 60s showed the lowest level of satisfaction. In particular, for satisfaction on relationship with the spouse's parents, women showed a very low level of satisfaction.

In terms of family values, negative perception of remarriage decreased, and tolerance towards divorce, cohabitation before marriage, and births outside marriage increased across all age groups. In particular, there was a high margin of increase in 20s and 30s. For income groups, the lowest income group had higher level of tolerance.

Lastly, in the area of family caring, there were clear gender differences in all areas, including time spent and areas of participation. Moreover, Such differences showed no significant improvement over time.

Such family changes show that family relationships are centering more around husband and wife rather than parents and children. Also, although people are becoming more open towards family composition, there were hardly any changes when it comes to the gender relationships within the family. The 20s and 30s had the biggest margin of change, while the 50s and 60s showed very narrow margin of change whilst agreeing with the changes themselves. Meanwhile, for males in their 40s, there was an increase in the need to participate in childcare and housework. Therefore, it seems that family policies targeting males in their 30s and 40s must be established to keep up the momentum of the family changes taking place. Family changes also appeared in different income groups, with the most notable changes in the lowest income groups. The lowest income group had the biggest change in family structure, and tolerance toward events that give impetus to family changes, such as divorce, cohabitation before marriage, and births outside marriage, also changed the most in this group. Based on the above results, policy recommendations are as follows. The development direction of family policies are: first, strengthen support for families with children; second, strengthen support policies for work-life balance; and third, strengthen family policies for gender equality. Detailed challenges are as follows.

○ Suggestions the policy basis for development of family policies

- Revise the Framework Act on Healthy Families

- Re-establish the coordination agency for family policies - Introduction of Evaluation System on Basic plan for Healthy Families

- Consider introducing a scheme for Family Impact Analysis

- Allocate and expand budget for family policies appropriately

○ Strengthen support for families with children

- Strengthen tax support related to child raising - Expand community-based caring spaces and groups

○ Strengthen support policies for work-life balance

- Strengthen childcare service priority for children of working parents

- Strengthen support and establish anti-discrimination basis regulation for “workers with family obligations” - Expand campaign to secure “family time”

- Change 3 major reform challenges for working hours to 4 major reform challenges - Build family-centered socioculture

○ Strengthen family policies for gender equality - Increase paternity leave to 7 days

- Consider introducing practical daddy quotas for childcare leaves

- Create website for working dads

- Investigate and promote cases of paternity support in companies

- “Paternity education on-the-go” to Family Friendliness Certification System

- Build platform for paternity support

○ Strengthen family policy support for various groups

- Develop measures to address increase in diversity of and need for single households

- Strengthen education on family relationships per family cycle, and support family life of elderly households

- Deregulate/eliminate requirements for persons with support obligations in National Basic Livelihood Security Act

- Strengthen social support for open attitude towards family structure