South Korean Families Research Articles

Associations of Broader Parental Factors with Children's Happiness and Weight Status through Child Food Intake, Physical Activity, and Screen Time: A Longitudinal Modeling Analysis of South Korean Families.

This study investigated how broader parental factors including parental happiness, parental play engagement, and parenting stress are related to Korean children's happiness and weight status across three years via indirect pathways through the children's energy-related behaviors of healthy and unhealthy food intake, physical activity, and screen time. Data from 1551 Korean parent pairs and 7-year-old children in the Panel Study on Korean Children were analyzed. A path analysis and gender-based multi-group analysis were conducted. Maternal happiness was negatively related to child screen time. Maternal play engagement showed positive concurrent associations with child healthy food intake and physical activity and negative associations with screen time. Maternal parenting stress was negatively related to child healthy eating. There was one significant finding related to fathers' role on children's energy-related behaviors, happiness, and weight status: the positive association between parental happiness and boys' unhealthy food intake. Child screen time was positively related to child weight status and negatively to child happiness at each age. Broader maternal parenting factors can serve as a protective factor for childhood happiness and weight status in 7-to-9-year-olds through being associated with a reduction in child screen time.

Justifiable narratives: The rise and fall of family politicians in South Korea

Like other Asian democracies, family politics is not unknown to South Korea. The triumph of Park Geun–hye, daughter of former authoritarian ruler Park Chung–hee, in the 2012 presidential election was in particular interpreted as a precursor of ‘dynastization’ in Korean politics. Nevertheless, up to the present day, political families in South Korea have been significantly less successful in securing offices through electoral competition than their Asian counterparts. Using extensive evidence from statistical and documentary sources, I argue the following: First, South Korean family politicians are more likely to face unfavorable popular sentiment towards their candidacies in elections than family politicians in other Asian democracies. Second, in addition to inheriting their predecessors' political advantages, they are required to enhance their own electoral appeal by properly justifying that their electoral participation is compatible with popular demands for meritocracy and procedural fairness. This argument highlighting politico–cultural requirements, or what I call justifiable narratives, for dynastic succession is empirically supported by case studies of four South Korean family politicians.

Associations between Parental Factors and Children's Screen Time During the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea.

This study investigated how parental depression, parental self-care, family conflict, and parental fear of COVID-19 are associated with children’s screen time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected online among South Korean families, resulting in 246 parents (59% fathers) with children between 6 and 12 years of age. Path analysis and multi-group structural equation modelling of fathers and mothers were conducted. Parent’s fear of COVID-19 was positively associated with parental depression. Parent’s fear of COVID-19 and parental depression were negatively related to parental self-care, which was negatively linked to family conflict. Family conflict was positively associated with children’s screen time. The relationships between parental factors and children’s screen time were different for mothers and fathers. Our results show that multiple family dynamics interact with children’s screen time, emphasizing the need to look beyond parenting practices in understanding the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on children’s screen time.

Comparing the nutritional status of children and adolescents from North Korean defector families and South Korean families

ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate the nutritional status of children and adolescents from North Korean defector (NKD) families who are currently living in South Korea (SK) and compared with the...

Children’s Negative Emotionality, Mothers’ Depression, and Parental Warmth in Predicting Children’s School Readiness in Low-Income Korean Families: The Role of Fathers’ Positive Involvement

This study examined how the longitudinal associations among children’s negative emotionality, mothers’ depressive symptoms, parental warmth, and children’s school readiness and whether the associations vary as a function of fathers’ positive involvement in low-income South Korean families. Participants were 399 families including mothers (Mage = 32.54 years at Time 1), fathers (Mage = 35.23 years at Time 1), and children (Mage = 38.92 months at Time 1; 50.5% boys) in the Panel Study on Korean Children. Results revealed that children’s negative emotionality was indirectly associated with their school readiness three years later, through its association with mothers’ depressive symptoms and warmth. Mothers’ warmth mediated the association between mothers’ depressive symptoms and children’s school readiness, and fathers’ warmth mediated the association between fathers’ positive involvement and children’s school readiness. Our findings revealed the family processes underlying children’s school readiness development in low-income Korean family contexts. Our findings also provide information useful for efforts to detect family risks and to establish family policies to promote low-income children’s school readiness.

Intergenerational transmission of environmental household practices among South Korean families: continuity and change

We seek to understand how environmentalism is experienced, discussed and transmitted by South Korean families in the context of changing economic and environmental circumstances. Qualitative interviews with three-generation Korean families are used, in a country characterised in the past fifty years by rapid economic changes alongside continuation of traditional collectivistic social structures. We emphasise the family unit as an arena for the transmission of cultural dispositions, routines, habits and practices across generations. Relying on social practice theoretical framing, our findings suggest that in a mix of continuity and change, family routines are translated into complementing centripetal and centrifugal forces to encompass four themes: transmission processes, routinising of cultural habits, top-down intergenerational transmission with shifting motivations, and top-down intergenerational transmission with declining involvement. We discuss these findings in light of the theoretical heuristic of environmental habitus.

Burdens, Resilience, and Mutual Support: A Comparative Study of Families in China and South Korea Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic disrupts established daily routines, it underlines the role that families play in redefining social order and reorganizing people’s economic and social lives. In this paper, we investigate methods that Chinese and South Korean families have adopted to cope with the rapid changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. We emphasize families’ responses to sudden changes in three domains: education and home schooling, economic downturn and unemployment, and mental health challenges. By integrating online education and remote working into a new form of family life and sharing economic and emotional risks among members, families shape social order during a period of unprecedented uncertainty. We highlight the fact that family members experience intensified work-family or school-family conflicts. Disadvantaged families are the most severely affected, as they are at high risk of job loss and lack proper protections. The absence of institutional protections and interventions has created further economic and emotional hardships for these vulnerable families. Informal and nonregular workers require more stable labor market conditions for the well-being of their families. Future research may include a systematic data collection and analysis of disadvantaged families, as this would offer a better understanding of the challenges and untenable choices that families face during times of crisis.

Comparison of Malnutrition Status in Preschool Children between North Korean Refugee Families and South Korean Families

Comparison of Malnutrition Status in Preschool Children between North Korean Refugee Families and South Korean Families

Applying target congruence theory to victimization risk of students from multicultural backgrounds: A comparison of South Korean, North Korean, and other multicultural family adolescents

Abstract The objective of this study was to apply Target Congruence Theory (TCT) to explore the relationship between ethnicity and victimization in the context of South Korea. Specifically, this study used more than 235,000 students from the Korean Youth Risk Behavior Web-Based Survey (KYRBS) to explore the victimization experiences of multicultural children through the lenses of target vulnerability, target gratifiablity, and target antagonism. Results from multivariate modeling show that indicators of target congruence and deviant lifestyles were associated with the risk of violent victimization. Consistent with propositions of TCT, students from North Korean families were over eleven times more likely to report that they had experienced serious victimization, even after controlling for opportunity-related variables than students from South Korean families. Similarly, “other” multicultural family adolescents were over five times more likely to report a violent victimization experience than South Korean family adolescents. Policy implications are discussed.

Domesticating gangsters? Home/work conflicts in South Korean family drama gangster film

Gangster films are largely an urban genre set in the mean streets of metropolitan ganglands. A significant proportion of South Korean gangster films depart from this spatial convention, however, setting their central family or romance plots in the domestic space of the apartment. This article addresses the question of why we find gangsters in domestic space in South Korean cinema and examines what the domestic setting ‘does’ to the gangster film. The Show Must Go On (2008) is discussed in detail to exemplify the ways that questions of masculinity, gendered family role performance and class anxieties are crystallized around domestic space. What emerges in this spatial shift is a new sub-genre, the ‘family drama gangster film’. This form combines elements of the traditional gangster narrative with family melodrama, producing tension between the conflicting obligations of the gangster towards gang and family. The article concludes that the family drama gangster film emerged as a response to a conjunction of socio-economic and film industry factors and became a vehicle through which conflict between competing ideologies of Korean familism is negotiated, mostly resolving in favour of affective familism.

Family Control and Opposition Party Connections: Evidence from the Korean Family Business Groups

While the immediate benefit is clearly expected from having connections to the incumbent government, benefits from the opposition parties seem to be subtle and distant. Then, what motivates firms more likely to seek political connections to the opposition political parties that are political rivals of the incumbent government, despite the potential negative consequences? In this research, using South Korean family business group-affiliates as our research context, we argue that firms with strong family control are likely to seek more opposition party connections as a realization of their long-term orientation. Moreover, we find that the higher public approval, the legislative power, the conservatism of the incumbent government, and firms’ short-term performance pressure mitigate the positive impact of family control on more opposition party connections.

Correction to: Violence Victimization Among Adolescents from Culturally or Ethnically Diverse South Korean Families.

The original version of the article unfortunately contained a typo in corresponding author name. The corresponding author name is Gyungjoo Lee instead it was published incorrectly as Gyungoo Lee.

Custody Evaluation Process and Report Writing.

As in western countries, divorce rates in South Korea have recently been rising, and family disruption has become one of serious social problems. Parents are able to express their opinions and wishes confidently, but the thoughts and wishes of children, especially infants and young children, tend to be ignored. Children can also experience several emotional and behavioral problems during the process of and after their parents’ divorce. When South Korean family courts determine custody arrangements, they typically do not have a systematic strategy and process based on custody evaluation to help children and their parents overcome conflicts and build healthy parent-child relationships after divorce. Furthermore, under the current court system, it is difficult for mental health specialists and child psychiatrists to intervene in familial conflicts as mediators or therapists during the course of divorce proceedings. Acknowledging these limitations, the South Korean family court system implemented a formal program for custody evaluations by child psychiatrists and psychologists in 2017. However, they have faced challenges such as a shortage of experienced specialist and lack of a training system or instruments for evaluation. In this paper, the authors aim to share professional knowledge of and experiences with aspects of the custody evaluation process, such as indications, procedures, methods, psychological tests, resources, and final report writing, to better serve children and their parents undergoing a painful divorce process.

Chinese and South Korean Families' Conceptualizations of a Fair Household Labor Distribution

The present study set out to investigate how Chinese and South Korean families conceptualize fairness and a fair division of household labor. Previous cross-cultural research has found that a good portion of women and men find the gendered division of household labor fair. In response, scholars have attempted to discover what factors lead to a greater likelihood of reporting a gendered division fair. However, the majority of the scholarship on fairness perceptions has been limited to survey methods, in which fairness is not defined, and the individual's reasons for their fairness perception is not investigated. This study employed thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with the members of 12 Chinese (N=39) and 12 Korean (N=40) families. No participation in household labor was considered across families to be unfair. On the other hand, the majority of participants justified an unequal division to be fair based on gendered applications of differences in time-availability and levels of tiredness, in which the amount of housework that each member should do was left unspecified. Many adult participants believed that fairness should not apply to the family context. Instead, most participants argued that household labor should be divided based on emotional satisfaction, maintained through mechanisms of understanding and agreement. Future studies on fairness perceptions should clearly define what they mean by "fairness," and the gendering of gender-neutral appearing justifications such as time-availability should be further investigated.

통일 후 남북한 친족법의 통합방안

통일 후 남북한 친족법의 통합방안

Violence Victimization Among Adolescents from Culturally or Ethnically Diverse South Korean Families.

This study compared the prevalence of violence victimization requiring hospital treatment among adolescents that are culturally or ethnically diverse and those that are South Korean living in South Korea. This study used a nationally representative data set of 63,376 adolescents obtained from the Korean Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey conducted in 2015 by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hierarchical multivariable logistic regression was conducted to calculate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for violence victimization in each group of culturally diverse adolescents compared to that of adolescents with South Korean parents. The analysis showed that adolescents whose parents are both culturally or ethnically diverse had ORs of 18.64 (95% CI 11.28-30.81) for violent experience. To decrease the violent victimization of culturally diverse adolescents with a culturally or ethnically diverse parent, specific government policies and school strategies are needed.

Family vacationers' willingness to pay for glamping travel sites: A family functioning segmentation

AbstractUsing a sample of South Korean family glampers, we aim to examine how they exhibit their willingness to pay for glamping travel site attributes. We also employ the notion of family functioning as a segmentation criterion to understand heterogeneity in family glampers' inherent preferences. Results of discrete choice experiments suggest that family glampers place the greatest importance on the site separation. A segmentation scheme using family functioning also provides evidence that glampers from an unbalanced family are willing to pay more for diverse recreation experiences and short‐stay programs. Different management strategies are presented for developing satisfactory family glamping travel sites.

Health risk behaviors and psychological problems among South Korean, North Korean, and other multicultural family adolescents (2011–2016)

This study was aimed to investigate the health risk behaviors and psychological problems among North Korean, other multicultural, and South Korean family adolescents. The data were collected from the Korea Youth Risk Behavior web-based survey (2011–2016) data set. A total of 17,195 adolescents (mean age 14.65 ± 0.01 years) were analyzed to compare health risk behaviors and psychological problems among the three groups. Concerning risk behaviors, multicultural family adolescents showed a higher rate of alcohol use, smoking, drug use and sexual relations compared to South Korean family adolescents. Moreover, North Korean family adolescents were more likely to experience those risk behaviors than other multicultural family adolescents. Concerning psychological problems, multicultural family youth displayed more depressed mood, and more suicidal ideation, planning, and attempts when compared with South Korean family youth. Among multicultural families, North Korean family adolescents were more depressed and showed higher suicidality. School-based education and preventive interventions are necessary to manage risk behaviors and psychological difficulties of adolescents in North Korean and other multicultural families.

Prevalence and Correlates of Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors among North Korean Defectors.

Objective Despite the increasing number of North Korean defectors, research on their mental health conditions and suicidal thoughts and behaviors has not been conducted systematically. We examined the prevalence and risk factors of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in North Korean defectors. Methods This study focused on 300 North Korean defectors recruited from regional resettlement centers in South Korea. In-person interviews based on the North Korean version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview were conducted to diagnose mental disorders and assess suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Logistic regression analyses were performed to evaluate the association between suicidal thoughts and behaviors and socio-demographic variables, and DSM-IV mental disorders. Results Lifetime prevalence of suicidal ideation, plans, and attempts were 28.3, 13.3, and 17.3%, respectively. Female sex (OR: 2.0, 95% CI: 1.0–3.9), presence of health problems in the past year (2.6, 95% CI: 1.4–4.6), and absence of both South Korean acquaintances (1.9, 95% CI: 1.0–3.4) and North Korean family (1.7, 95% CI: 1.0–2.9) were associated with higher odds of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, after adjusting for participant age, sex, and education. Presence of a mental disorder was associated with a significantly increased odd of suicide ideation, plan, and attempt. Of all mental disorder categories, agoraphobia had the strongest association with suicidal ideation (6.5, 95% CI: 2.0–21.6), plans (7.7, 95% CI: 2.5–23.2) and attempts (12.0, 95% CI: 3.5–40.8). Conclusion Suicidal thoughts and behaviors among North Korean defectors are higher than the general population in South Korea, especially show high rates in transit countries. Further study should focus on the changes in suicidal thoughts and behaviors according to the settlement process and early prevention.

The relationships among family income, parental depression, and adolescent aggression in South Korea: A latent growth mediation model

Although the Family Stress Model is well-established with many examples, there is relatively little information about South Korean families, which are known for greater bonding between parents and adolescents. The current study examined whether changes in parents' depression would mediate the relationship between income dynamics and youth development changes in South Korea. The participants were 561 families who had completed the Korean Welfare Panel Study at three time points that covered the full span from elementary to high school. A latent growth mediation model was used, and the results indicated that 1) family income was associated with parental depression and youth aggression over time and 2) early parental depression fully mediated the relationship between early family income and subsequent youth aggression rates over time. These findings have major implications for policies and interventions with regard to low-income South Korean families.