Changing Views on Family Diversity in Urban Korea

GYESOOK YOO*

With increased industrialization and urbanization in a particular society,' we can expect population changes and newly emerging family patterns with changing views and values toward family diversity. From a structural-functional perspective, Goode (1963) fo6nd that as societies urbanized and industrialized, families within those societies moved to accept conjugal and smaller families, divorces, and remarriages. And as futurists assert (Toffler, 1970; Naisbitt, 1984), families in a postindustrial society (Kirkendall & Gravatt, 1984) will change to reflect and be consistent with the decentered, diverse outside world, exhibiting greater diversity in form and structure. People in this postindustrial world will experience constantly changing family patterns (Winton, 1995). The "conventional family pattern (serving as a cultural idea)" was defined in idealized terms as a heterosexual marriage occurring once in a lifetime, and ending only in the death of a spouse. It was assumed that the couple in this first and only legally sanctioned marriage would have and rear their own children. Family scholars define 9tructural diversity as including any variation (divorce; remarriage, single parenthood, nonmarital childbearing, gay or lesbian partnership, and long-term cohabitation) from the conventional pattern defined above (Allen, Blieszner, Roberto, Farnsworth, & Wilcox, 1999). According to Cheal (1991), there is no universal form of "the family," and "family" is a term used by lay actors to label those ties, which they believe to involve enduring intimate relations. Thus to understand contemporary family trends, we need to listen more to family members themselves (Cowan, 1993). Economic growth in Korea for the last four decades has been unsurpassed by any country in terms of the speed and the socio-structural impact it has brought. Because of rapid industrialization over a short period and the effects of urbanization since the-960s family structures in Korea have experienced serious changes. The .trends toward smaller and nuclear families, the decrease of marriages and child births, higher rates of divorces, and the increase of remarriages and single households are indications of those changes. It could be considered, therefore, that values and attitudes toward the structures of the family have been also changing, along with the process of industrialization in Korea. Despite its potential importance, there has been little empirical work studying public attitudes or acceptance toward diverse family structures in modem Korea. We do not know what
* School of Human Ecology, Kyung Hee University, 1, Hoeki-dong, Dongdaemoon-gu, Seoul, 130-701,

Korea dongrazi@yahoo.co.kr

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Journal of Comparative Family Studies

factors might be able to predict acceptance of family diversity, either. Thus I address the following two research questions in this study: (a) To what extent do people in urban Korea accept diverse living and relationship patterns as families? And (b) What are the variables contributing to prediction of their acceptance of family diversity? POPULATION TRENDS IN KOREA Accordifg.to the Korea National Statistical Office (2002), the number of marriages for every 1,000 people in 2002 was 6.4, down from 9.2 in 1970, and the number of divorces, on the other hand, increased during the period, to 3.0 per 1,000 people from 0.4 per 1,000. The economic depression since 1997 when financial crisis took place in the country contributed to the increase in the number of divorce by agreement of both parties who had financial problems. The number of remarriages has increased along with the number of divorces, meaning that people are simply starting to break away from the traditional marriage model rather than completely rejecting marriage, and that many more Korean families than ever before experienced single-parent or remarried families. The nation's birthrate has been gradually falling from 4.54 in 1970 to 1.17 in 2002. In particular, with birthing individuals projected to decrease to 1/3 of the present number, and the elderly expected to rapidly increase to as much as 4.5 times the present number, a seriously unbalanced population structure is the current prospect. It is predicted that elderly persons over the age of 65 will have increase from the present rate of 14% of the total population by a multiple of over 2.7, resulting in an aged society in the year 2100. Average household size for a family declined from 5.24 persons in 1970 to 3.12 persons in 2000. The proportion of extended family in 2000 was 7.9%, down from 19.9% in 1970. Moreover the proportion of three or four generation households in the population fell from 23.2% in 1970 to 8.4% in 2000 (see Table 1). These population trends, taken together, indicate that the family structure in Korea has been undergoing transformation from the traditional stem family into the nuclear family with some emerging patterns of postmodern families. TRADITIONAL FAMILISM IN KOREA People'are influenced by the society around them. Cultural beliefs and values influence our attitudes and decisions. And societal or structural conditions can limit or expand our options. The Korean people live in a changing society, characterized by increased family diversity. Familism and individualism are part of a general value cleavage growing out of these social changes. People have the difficult task of reconciling familism and individualism (Lamanna & Riedmann, 1991). Tyaditionally, the Korean society has precluded the development of individualism and a self and the sense of self. The Confucian system of filial piety and familism required that thestrong sense individual be merged into the family collective. Familism refers to the belief in a of family identification and loyalty, mutual assistaqce among family'members, a concern for the perpetuation of the family unit, and the subordination of the interests and personality of individual family members to the interests and welfare of the family group (Popenoe, 1993).

Changing Views on Family Diversity in Urban Korea Table 1 POPULATION TRENDS IN KOREA Census Year 1970 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 92 10.6 92 93 8.7 7.0 0.4 0.6 1.0 1.1 15 25

61

Crude marriage rate (/1,000pers.) Crude divorce rate (A,000pers.) No. of remarriages Husband Wife Total fertility rate (person) Average size of household (person) Type of family (%) Nuclearfamily Married couple Married couple with child(ren) Single parent with child(ren) Directly extended family Married couple with parent(s) Married couple with parent(s) & children) Other Types Household type (%) 1 Generation 2 Generations 3 Generations More than 4 Generations One person households
Household of

2001 6.7 2-8

2002 6.4 3.0

4.54 5.24

25,579 16,367 283 450

33,348 28,153 1.67 159 4.16 3.77

43,617 46,943 47,225 48,324 52,543 52,595" 1.65 1.47 1.30, 1.17 3.34 3.12

715

74.0

65.6 7.8 57.8 9.7

673 93 58.0 8.7 103 0.9 9.4

71.2 12.6 58.6 8.6 9.1 1.1 8.0

72.6 14.8 57.8 9.4 7.9 1.1 6.8

19.9

11.2

10.7 0.8 9.9

8.6 6.8 70.0 22.1 1.1

14.8 83 685 165 05 4.8

15

14.0 9.6 67.0 14.4 04 6.9

1.7

13.8 10.7 663 12.2 03 9.0

15

1-1.2 12-7 633 9.8 02 12.7

1.4

10.1 14.2 60.8 82' 02 155

1.1

unrelated persons Average monthly income of salary & wage earner's households in all cities (in W 10,000s)

2.82

2341

4238

9433

191.11

238.69 26251 279.24

Note. Data are from Annual Report on the Vital Statistics of Korea (various years).

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Journal of Comparative Family Studies

Familism necessitates that a family has its own goals, whatever it is. Family supports its members by sharing resources and its members try to cooperate with each other to achieve their common goals. The family is considered as more important than its individual members and he or she is identified with his or her family itself. In a word, family is regarded as the most important unit in society. Further, people with familism value the success of their family and try to sustain their family (Park, 2003). In general, a family's goals would be its prosperity, perpetuation, and honor in Confucian countries like Korea, China, Taiwan, and Japan. Those goals reflect male dominated interests on the base of gender inequality within families. Based on Confucian value of "ga (the family)", traditional familism in Korea has placed an emphasis on patrilineage, respect of elders, filial piety, ancestor worship, and the continuity of patrilineal family (Shin, 1998). This patriarchal familism has been an important foundation, supporting the family systems of traditional agricultural societies. The meaning of the traditional family includes not only those members who live in the same house, but also their ancestors, and even their unborn descendants. This is rather an abstract concept that continues through time. The succession of the family headship was limited only to sons of lineal descendants, and priority was according to seniority (Byun & Shinojaki, 1992). Even today, "hoju", or family head, serves as the basic foundations of Korea's family registry The "hoju" system, which defines the status of each family member in relation to the "hoju ". system is embedded with gender-discriminating aspects, which in most cases result in women becoming the victims. Based on this male-oriented order, even a son born from an extramarital relationship can become the head of family later on, despite the wife's objections. Divorced mothers, on the other hand, are banned from putting their children in their family register, and ctan only be acknowledged as "cohabitants" on paper. At the time when Korean women's groups officially initiated "anti-hoju movement" in 1999, there was stiff resistance from citizens who never once questioned the system. But according to a recent poll, 50% of Korean people said they feel the need to amend this system (Soh, 2002). Filial piety has been the highest moral principle of parent-child relationship, influencing the Korean family system. Children have been expected to look after their parents as a return for their parents' care. In traditional Korean society, parents sacrificed greatly for the reputation of the family and gained identity through the admiration of their ancestors. Nowadays, parents make substantial sacrifices for the education of their children and the children, in turn, work as hard as they can to fulfill the expectations that their parents and the whole family have of them. Most parents invest as much time, money, and emotional support as possible in the supposed high-quality education of their children, and their self-evaluations are closely related to the children's school and job success (Lee, 1997). Recent family trends show that the number of only-child families has been increasing and the number of older parents who desire to live with their adult children has been decreasing. In addition, with the development of individualism and capitalism, there has been a growing tendency for young generations to reject the traditional coercive and regulatory aspects of filial piety. These trends may bring on some changes in traditional concepts oil filial piety. It seems that the Korean family today still has the fundamental characteristics of the traditional familism marked by "ideals of the stem family" with an emphasis on the continuation of

Changing Views on Family Diversity in Urban Korea

63

patrilineage and filial piety. However, considering the consistent demographic changes in family structures as already stated, we can assume that there might be the gap between the ideals and the reality of Korean families. The contrast between the traditional familism and the shifting family structures and practices of the early twenty-first century seems to be huge. Thus this paper is based on the assumption that the traditional familism influences one's acceptance of family diversity. VALUES AND ATTITUDES TOWARD DIVERSE FAMILY STRUCTURES The changes that have been occurring to the Korean family structures throughout the last 40 years such as transformation from the patriarchal family system based on a hierarchical order of members to a nuclear family based on a married couple are hard to capture with the traditional concept of the family. These changes result in the weakening of the traditional familism such as solidarity between different generations, the appearance of individualism, and the influx of gender equality (Byun, Back, & Kim, 2000). Views on marriage are becoming more flexible and varied. This can be seen in the relatively tolerant attitude toward practices that were considered taboo in the past, such as international marriage, marriage between people of different social standing, marriage in which the woman is older than the man and marriage in which one of the partners has been married before. Furthermore, there has been a notable weakening of stereotypes and biases against divorce, remarriage, and living together before marriage (Hahm, 2003). Traditionally, divorce and remarriage have been considered as non-normative and problematic family events, the dissolution of the family, and a tragedy to the individual in Korean society. People blamed divorced or remarried persons (especially women) for denigrating the reputation of their kin. Even a woman first married to a man having the prior marital experience was despised. Moreover the well-known stereotype of the wicked stepmother caused lots of problems in her adjustment to remarriage and family relationships. Today, however, more and more people see divorce as an appropriate solution to an unhappy marriage. Recently, as the paternalistic values of men have clashed with the more egalitarian values of women, a growing number of women are initiating diN,orces due to a difference in the pace at which-the husbands have adapted to social change (Hahm, 2003). The reasons for divorce have changed from conflict with kin to marital incompatibility; which means that the conjugal tie has become more crucial, while the traditional kin relationships has declined. As the number of people remarrying increases, attitudes toward remarriage are also becoming more tolerant. It is important to pay attention to the recent change in the proportion of remarriage type. The proportion of remarried husband with a first married wife, the traditional remarriage type, has slightly increased from 3.0% in 1972 to 3.8% in 2001, while theproportion of both remarried increased from 2.4% to 10.9%. And the proportion of remarried wife with a first married husband increased from 0.5% to 5.6% during the same periods (Korea National Statistical Office, 2002). These changes indicate that the Korean society has become to accept the egalitarian rernarriage norm instead of the traditional gendei discriminated attitudes.

64

Journal of Comparative Family Studies

Korean society traditionally has belittled premarital cohabitation, a lifestyle that was considered to belong to lower-class people or social outcasts who did not have proper morals. Recently, though, attitudes have changed to such an extent that six out of ten university students view premarital cohabitation as a prerequisite for a successful marriage. It is also reported that 5% of college students have actually lived with a member of the opposite sex (Hahm, 2003). Byun & Shinojaki (1992) examined family consciousness in the real lives of people in Seoul, Korea and Fukuoka, Japan. They found that 99.1% of Seoul people considered that the primary unit of family consisted of spouse and children, while 76.4% of Fukuoka people thought so. 70% of Seoul people viewed children as the continuity of the family lineage, while 60% of Fukuoka people did so. And 70.2% of people agreed to conception by means of in-vitro fertilization or a test-tube baby. On the other hand, only 50% of Fukuoka people agreed to the artificial devices to induce conception. They also found that 53.6% of Seoul people agreed to alternative family life styles other than blood or conjugal ties, whereas 37.4% did so in Fukuoka, showing more family-oriented values than Fukuoka people. Regarding family norms, gender roles, and sexuality issues, Seoul people were more traditional than Fukuoka people. However, people in both countries perceived the ties between parents and children stronger than the marital bonds. So far, Korean society has regarded diverse patterns of families formed by other than blood ties and legitimate marriage as cultural aberrations. This view results in very limited conceptual and empirical attention to the issues related to diverse family structures. Much more needs to be known about the degree to which Korean people accept diverse family structures and the factors predicting acceptance of family diversity. MEMHOD Subjects Data were collected from 1,028 residents in Seoul, Korea with a self-administered survey in November 2001. The Han River bisects this nation's capital city into two parts: northern part, "Gangbuk" and southern one, "Gangnam". Among the 25 administrative districts ("gu"s) of Seoul, 14 consist of "Gangbuk", the middle-to-lower class area, and 11 "Gangnam ", the middle-to-upper class part. To obtain a more representative sample, 7 districts of"Gangbuk" and 5 of "Gangnam" were randomly selected, and 1,028 residents were then recruited from high schools, universities, a variety of offices, organizations, and community centers located in those 12 districts. Of this initial sample, twenty-nine cases with more than 25% missing data on any scale were excluded, resulting in a final sample size of 999 respondents. Fifty-one percent of them were female and 49% were male. The age range was from 14 to 8 9 years, and the mean age o f the sample was 36.75 years (SD = 16.98), with no significant age difference between gender groups. According to information provided by respondents aged 20 years and over (n = 814), fifty-eight percent were in a first marriage, and the remaining 42% were nevermarried (29.7%), widowed (5.1%), cohabiting (2.4%), divorced (2.3%), remarried (1.6%), and separated (0.9%) at the time the survey was completed. In terms of educational attainment, 9.7% completed junior high school or lower education levels, 18.7% were attending high

Changing Views on Family Diversity in Urban Korea

65

school, 22.7% completed high school, 41.9% completed college, and 7.0% completed graduate school or higher education levels. The average size of households was 3.43 persons (range 1-8 persons, SD = 1.07). 72.4% of respondents perceived their families as middle class, and the modal monthly family income reported was W2,000,000($ 1,667 U.S.). Measures Acceptance offamily diversity Twenty items of diverse living and relationship patterns partly excerpted from Klein & White's (1996) 'Which of These Is a Family?' were used to measure the level of acceptance of family diversity (see Table 2). For each item, respondents were requested to answer the following question: "Do you think of the following living and relationship pattern as afamily?" Response options were coded '1' if the respondent defined as 'a family', and '0', 'non-family', and items were summed to form a total score of acceptance of family diversity. Possible rage of this score is 0 to 20. Higher scores indicate higher levels of acceptance of family diversity. Traditionalfamilism To measure the level of traditional familism, Shin's (1998) 'Korean Familism Scales' were used. For 20 statements focusing on traditional familism properties such as patrilineage, filial piety, ancestor worship, gender discriminatory consciousness, collectivism, and so on respondents were asked to rate on a 5-point Likert-type scale. Responses ranging from 'strongly disagree (1)' to 'strongly agree (5)' were summed to create a total score of traditional familism. Possible range of the total score is 20 to 100, and higher scores indicate having more traditional familism. Examples of items include "Parents shouldn't be divorced for the sake of their child(ren)," "The eldest son should inherit a family property." Sociodemographic variables Several sociodemographic characteristics of respondents were obtained as possible predictors of acceptance of family diversity: gender, age, marital status, education, size of household, and monthly family income. Gender contrasted 'males (1)' with 'females (2)'. Age was coded directly in years. Marital status was coded '1' if the respondent was 'never married', and '2' 'married'. Education was coded on a 6-point scale ranging from 'no education (1)' to '17 (graduate degree) or more years (6)'. The size of household and monthly family income were coded directly in person(s) and 10,000 Korean Wons, respectively. RESULTS Defining diverse living and relationship patterns as families Table 2 presents the frequencies and percentages of defining 20 diverse living andr elationship patterns as families. Results showed that the intact nuclear family of biological parents (item 1), single-parent families (item 2 and 3), remarried family (item 4), adopt!dfamilies (item 3 and 5), and three-generation families (item 5 and 6) were defined as families by more than

66

Journal of Comparative Family Studies

70% of the respondents. In particular, 99.3% of the respondents defined a husband and wife and their biological offspring as a family, indicating that the intact nuclear family is accepted as the typical normal family in urban Korea. On the contrary, the proportion that the communal family (item 12), extended kin (item 13, 15, and 16), homosexual couples (item 14), single households (item 18 and 20), and one's ancestors (item 19) were defined as families did not exceed 40%. Overall, the respondents in this study demonstrated moderate levels of acceptance of family diversity (mean = 9.98). This study also found that gender and age group differences in levels of acceptance of family diversity. Female respondents were more inclined to accept diverse patterns of living arrangements and relationships than male ones. Among various age groups, middle-aged adults, especially people in their 40s, tended to show the highest levels of acceptance of family diversity, followed by young adults (ages 20 through 39), older adults (age 60 and up), and adolescents. Adolescents had a tendency to consider the intact nuclear family of biological parents as the only acceptable family pattern. Traditional familism Table 3 displays the means and standard deviations of the respondent's level of traditional familism. Overall, the respondents in this study had relatively lower levels of traditional familisn (M= 50.75, SD = 13.11). Among 20 items, people showed more traditional familism in items such as"Parents are one with their child(ren).", "Parents shouldn't be divorced for the sake of their child(ren).", and "Children's success is parents' success." On the contrary, the respondents disagreed to the items such as "It is quite natural for men to have extramarital relationships." and "I attach importance to the family origin and nobility." That is, the urban people in this study were in favor of the gender equality and individualism rather than male dominated familism while viewing the paRTent-child relationship as the most important, basic, and inseparable unit within the family. Variables predicting acceptance of family diversity Intercorrelations, means, standard deviations, ranges, and reliability coefficients (a) of the study variables appear in Table 4. Bivariate correlation coefficients among independent variables did not exceed the level of .70 except the large relationship between age and marital status (r= .74) indicating a little collinearity problem. To examine the contribution to prediction of acceptance of family diversity made by the sociodemographic characteristics and traditional familism, a hierarchical multiple regression was performed. The result is presented in Table 5. Sociodemographic characteristics including one's gender, age, marital status, education, size of household, and monthly family income were first entered in the regression equation and accounted for 12% of the variance in 35 acceptance of family diversity, F (6,542) = 12. , p < .001. Of these control variables, most strongly related to acceptance of family diversity was respondent's age (P= .32), followed by education (l= .26), gender (P=.21), and monthly family income (fl= .17). Marital status and size of household did not contribute to prediction of acceptance of family diversity.

Changing Views on Family Diversity in Urban Korea Table 2 FREQUENCIES AND PERCENTAGES OF DEFINING DIVERSE LIVING AND RELATIONSHIP PATTERNS AS FAMILIES

67

Total Age Groupf(%) Diverse Patterns of Living Gender .l(%) Arrangements and Relation- Male Female 14-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60 or f(%)
ships
_years

years years years years years

1. A husband and wife and their offspring 2. A single woman and her three young children 3. A 52-year-old woman and her adoptive mother 4. A remarried couple and their children from previous relationships 5. A married couple, their adopted son and his wife, & the latter couple's children, all living together 6. A man, his daughter, and the daughter's soht 7. Three adult sisters living together 8. An unmarried woman' and her son conceived by artificial insemination by donor 9. A childless husband and wife who live apart 10.A divorced man, his girlfriend, and her child 1 child, his stepfather, & l.A the stepfather's cohabitant subsequent to his bereavement of the child's mother 12.Six adults and their 12 young children, all living together in a communal fashion 13.Two adult male cousins living together 14.Two cohabiting lesbians and their children from a previous marriage of one woman and a previous relationship of the other woman with a male friend

482 (99.4) 368 (75.9) 357 (73.6) 346 (71.3) 339 (69.9)

503 (99.2) 414 (81.7) 415 (81.9) 425 (83.8)

182 201 194 205 92 (98.4) (99.0) (99.5) (100.0) (100.0) 77 175 164 191 89 (41.6) (86.2) (84.1) (93.2) (96.7) 97 169 169. 192 76 (52.4) (83.3) (86.7) (93.7) (82.6) 98 171 153- 187 81 (53.0) (84.2) (78.5) (91-2) (88.0)

109 (98.2) 85 (76.6) ,69 (62.2) 80 (72.1)

991 (99.3) 784 (78.6) 776 (77.8) 776 (77.8)

76 77 761 419 93 162 162 187 (82.6) (50.3) (79.8) (83.1) (91.2) (82.6) (69.4) (76.3)

84 68 744 172 400 339 86 167 162 (69.9) (78.9) (46.5) (82.3) (83.1) (83.9) (91.3) (61.3) (74.5) 85 163 127 171 74 64 688 301 383 (62.1) (755) (45.9) (80.3) (65.1) (83.4) (80.4) (57.7) (69.0) 332 81 145 117 155 58 47 607 272 (56.1) (65.5) (43.8) (71.4) (60.0) (75.6), (63.0), (42.3) (60.8) 293 600 304 56 142 118 134 73 74 (60.4) (60.0) (30.3) (70.0) (60-5) (65.4) (79.3) (66.7) (60.1) 223 252 65 103 89 125 49 43 476 (46.0) (49.7) (35.1) (50.7) (45.6) (61.0) (53.3) (38.7) (47.7) 255 55 101 93 121 .55 34 462 204 (42.1) (50.3) (29.7) (49.8) (47.7) (59.0) (59.8) (30.6) (46.3)

161 204 60 66 76 83 45 341 368 (33.2) (40.2) (32.4) (32.5) (39.0) (40.5) (48.9) (30.6) (36.9)

"148 .190 58 75 9 49 38 341 59 (30.5) (37.5) (31.4) (36.9) (30.3) (28.8) (53.3) (34.2) (34.2) 32 92 62 92 142 183 23 23 325 (29.3) (36.1) (17.3) (45.3) (31.8) (44.9) (25.0) (20.7) (32.6)

68

Journalof Comparative Family Studies

15.A widow and her former husband's grandfather's sister's granddaughter 16.Both sets of parents of a deceased married couple 17.A 77-year-old woman and her lifelong best friend living together 18.An 84-year-old widow and her dog, Fido 19.A man and all of his ancestors back to Tangun, the founding father of Korea 20.A never-married single man living alone

54 78 40 37 314 131 181 35 68 (27.0) (35.7) (18.9) (33.5) (27.7) (38.0) (43.5) (33.3) (31.5) 56 60 43 36 293 132 158 33 61 (272) (31.2) (17.8) (30.0) (28.7) (29.3) (46.7) (32.4) (29.4) 46 41 37 244 145 35 38 45 96 (19.8) (28.6) (18.9) (18.7) (23.1) (22.4) (44.6) (33.3) (24.4) 35 33 26 26 206 125 40 45 79 (163) (24.7) (21.6) (22.2) (17.9) (16.1) (283) (23.4) (20.6) 14 26 21 40 156 79 28 25 76 (15.7)- (15.6) (15.1) (12.3) (7.2) (12.7) (22.8) (36.0) (15.6) 28 (5-8) 23 (4.5) 20 7 10 (5.4) (9.9) (3.6) 5 (2.4) 4 5 (5.4) (3-6) 51 (5.1)

In the second step, traditional familism was entered and explained an additional 1.2% of the variance in acceptance of family diversity. Although small, the effect of traditional familism was still significant, F-change (1,541) = 7.10, p <.01. Among variables inthe second model, = the strongest predictor of acceptance of family diversity was again respondent's age (P3 .35), followed by education (P3 = .25), gender (P3= .17), monthly family income (P3= .17) and traditional familism (P = -.12). Marital status and size of household did not still contribute to prediction. R2 for regression was significantly differentfrom zero, F (7,541) = 11.71,p <.001. Collectively, the variables explained 13.2% of the variance in acceptance of family diversity. Thus respondents who were older, more educated, female, and had more family income were more likely to accept family diversity than their counterparts. The negative relationship indicates that respondents with more traditional familism were less likely to accept family diversity as compared to those with less traditional familism. DISCUSSION This study, based on a survey with 999 respondents in Seoul, Korea, has attempted to examine the degree to which they accept diverse family structures and explore the factors that might be able to predict acceptance of family diversity. The results showed that the urban people in Korea had moderate levels of acceptance of family diversity. Overwhehning majority of the respondents viewed the intact nuclear family of biological parents as a family, and the majority defined the single-parent, remarried, adopted, and three-generation families as "families". On the contrary, the single household, one's ancestors, and a person living with pets or one or more persons to whom he or she is not related were viewed as "nonfamilies". Accepting the intact nuclear family as the typical normal family, they tended to view spouses, parents, and children as the constituent members of families. A recent study conducted by the Sunoo (1999), a leading marriage information service company, surveyed 2,000 young adult singles' views on love and marriage. The research revealed that marriage in Korea is undergoing transformation from the institutional marriage of the past, where the roles of the family and familial relationships were considered most important, to the companionship marriage, which place the stress on the sentimental bonds

Changing Views on Family Diversity in Urban Korea Table 3 MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS OF TRADITIONAL FAMILISM SD M Items of Traditional Familism 1. A wife should make herself agreeable to her husband in every matter. 2 The meaning of a bride's gifts offered to the parents of her groom is that she joins the family of her husband. However, the groom need not offer gifts to the parents of his bride. 3. It is the custom for a man to propose a marriage to a woman. 4. A son's success above a daughter's success. 5. A couple should give birth to a boy regardless of the number of child. 6. The bridegroom side should have the initiative in performing a wedding ceremony. 7. The table should be suitable to the father's or the eldest son's tastes. 8. The eldest son should inherit a family property. 9. It is quite natural for men to have extramarital relationships. 10. Even if an only daughter should served the parents-in-law rather than her parents after marriage. 11. Even if a childless couple shouldn't adopt an unrelated person as their child. 12. Parents are one with their child(ren). 13. Children's success is parents' success 14. Parents shouldn't be divorced for the sake of their child(ren). 15. The virtues of a woman are to be a filial daughter-in-law, good wife and wise mother. 16. I am interested in my genealogy and clansmen of the same surname. 17. One should perform a religious service following tradition and sticking to formality. 18. I am proud of achievements and contributions of my ancestor. 19. After the death of parents, one should be discreet in word and deed, mourning over deceased parents. 20. 1 attach importance to the family origin and nobility. Total
253 1.12

69

2.10

1.07

256 2.18 2.06 2.41 229 2.18 1.83 2.40 2.23

3.46 324 3.39 3.21

1.18 1.17 1.13 1.06 1.10 1.13 1.09 1.11 1.11 1.20 1.18 1.25 1.17 1.12 1.25 1.12 1.16 1.05 13.11

229 2.71 2.90 3.18 1.98 50.75

and intimacy between spouses. Regarding the way of mate selection, 44% of young adult singles preferred a "yeonae ", the love marriage, while only 3.3% of them chose "jungmae", the arranged marriage. Also, they considered good couple relationships as essential to having a happy family life (66.5%) followed by members'health (14.3%) and financial security (9.3%). Although Koreans had an increasing awareness of the importance of couple relationships, the Korean family still has some qualitative differences from the couple centered families of the West (Hahm, 2003). Parent-child relationship is relatively prior to marital relationship in Korea, as can be seen from recent increase of the single-father households. Nowadays, an

70

Journal of Comparative Family Studies CORRELATIONS AND DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS FOR STUDY VARIABLES Variables 1
-

Table 4 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1 Acceptance of

2 3 4 5

family diversity Traditionalfamilism -.13*** Gender .14*** -.28*** (l=-iale, 2=female) 0 .12*** .33*** -. 1 Age (years) .16*** .23*** .00 Marital status (l=never married,
2=married)

.74***

.15*** -.18*** -.16*** -.37*** .01 6 Education (l=none, 2=1-6 years, 3=7-9 years, 4=1 0-1 2 years, 5=1 3-1 6 years, 6= 17 or more years) 7 Size of household -.17*** -.16*** .04 .01 .03 -.01 (person(s)) 8 Monthly family income .21*** .23*** .02 -.10"* -.03 .18*** -.02 (in W 10,000s) 3.43 184.01 4.38 1.52 36.75 1.51 50.75 9.98 M 1.07 137.23 .98 -50 16.98 .50 13.11 4.67 SD 1 1 1 1 1 1 20 20 Number of items 1-8 0-1,500 1-6 1-2 14-89 1-2 8-96 1-20 Range .89 .87 a **p<.01, ***p<.001. increasing number of Korean fathers, who want their children to get better education, are willing to be a "gireogi appa (a lonely goose daddy)". They live alone in their houses as if they were single again, due to sending their children and wives to English-speaking countries for the sake of their children's education. Here, the priority of education and strong motivation for achievement are family affairs, their being directed toward the prosperity of the family and toward maintaining face and the reputation of the family. The traditional Korean family was oriented toward their ancestors and the past whereas modem family is oriented toward the coming generations and their future. What remains constant is that the individual continues to be merged into the family collective (Lee, 1997). In the meantime, when recent emergence of selfish parents among young divorced couples refusing to claim child custody is taken account, the follow-up study is required to see whether this phenomenon of sacrificial fathers will be consistent in the future.

Changing Views on Family Diversity in Urban Korea Table 5 SUMMARY OF HIERARCHICAL MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS FOR VARIABLES PREDICTING ACCEPTANCE OF FAMILY DIVERSITY Variable Gender* Age (years) Marital statusb Educationc Size of household (person(s)) Monthly family income (in W l0,O00s) Traditionalfamilism B 1.938 8.839E-02 -1.168 1.254 1.66413-02 5.939E-03 Model 1 SEB .387 .021 .687 .241 .178 .001

71

f
.207*** .321*** -.125 .262*** .004 .174***

B 1.598 9.638E-02 -1.092 1.177 6363E-02 5.822E4)3 =4.3E-02

Model 2 SEB .406 .021 .683 .241 .178 .001 .016 .171*** .350*** -.117 .246*** .015 .171*** -.120**

R2 .120 .132 F for change in R2 12.345*** 7.087** **p <. 0 1. ***p <. 0 01. Note. 'Gender: 1 = male, 2 = female. bMarital status: 1 never married, 2 married. CEducation: 1 = none, 2 = 1-6 years, 3 = 7-9 years, 4 =10-12 years, 5 =, 13-16 years 6-17 or more years. The results regarding the predictors of acceptance of family diversity revealed that being older, more educated, female, having more family income andless traditional familism predicted higher levels of acceptance of family diversity. It was interesting that the respondents' age, of the sociodemographic characteristics, had the most strong and positive relationship with the degree of acceptance of family diversity. That is, older people (particularly middle-aged adults) were more likely to accept family diversity than younger people (particularly adolescents). This could be explained by the life-span perspective. People are more likely to experience their own idiosyncratic or nonnormative life events with age. The diversity of experience is a reality in adulthood (Sigelman & Shaffer, 1995). Thus'older respondents could more empathize with diverse family lives, and this resulted in their higher levels of acceptance of family diversity than younger ones. The result that middle-aged people showed the higher levels of acceptance of family diversity than other age groups can be interpreted by cohort effects. The Korean baby-boomers in their 40s and 50s, compared to other age groups, have been exposed during their whole life time to the most dramatic changes in social values' stemming from fast economic development and cultural revolution. They spent their adolescent and young adult periods with unprecedented changes in family structure as-the country migrated from underdeveloped to industrialized in terms of both economy and politics during 1970s and 1980s. MoreoVer, during the late 1990s when-the financial crisis took place, this generatiori could not help seeing family dissolution as breadwinners. Such wide spectrum in these experiences might make them more tolerant and acceptable to family diversity than other age groups. This study also found that one's educational attainment and family income were significant predictors of the degree of acceptance of family diversity. These results indicate two things.

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First, it is likely that advanced educational experiences not only contribute to cognitive growth but also give people opportunities to be exposed to the diverse ideas and perspectives (Sigelman & Shaffer, 1995). Second, the members in higher-income families are more likely to have alternatives in choosing living and relationship patterns than their counterparts. Recently, as the market of marriage (particularly remarriage) information service companies has expanded and gained its popularity in the nation, a growing number of well-educated and high-income clients are knocking on the door of these companies. This trend shows an indirect evidence of the positive effects of one's education and family income on acceptance of family diversity. With regard to a significant gender difference in the degree of acceptance of family diversity, we can perceive the presence of gender-differentiated lag in urban Korea, which indicates that changes in men's views on family diversity have lagged behind changes in women's. This is also supported by a significant gender difference in the level of traditional familism (M = 54.52 for males and 47.19 for females, t ;- 9.17,p < .001). The results that respondents' marital status and size of household were not significant predictors might be due to the collinearity problem between age and marital status, and limited variance of the size of household (66.7% of the respondents reported the size of their households was 3 or 4 members). This question needs to be reexamined in future study. Several limitations of this study must be noted. First, I analyzed data from highly educated people in addition to the middle-class areas in Seoul. This is not a nationally representative sample. Although about a quarter (10,280,523 as of the end of 2002) of the total national population live in this highest industrialized city, caution in interpretation of the results reported here is recommended. And future studies will be necessary to collect data from rural areas as well as other cities in Korea for the generalizability of findings. Second, the amount of variance in acceptance of family diversity accounted for by the independent variables analyzed in this study was not large. However given all the various personal, relational, familial, and sociocultural factors that might predict the acceptance of family diversity, it is not surprising that the predictor variables in this study played a modest role. I explored the impact of several sociodemographic factors and only one attitudinal variable (traditional familism). At minimum, this study provides grounds for further empirical research on Korean people's acceptance of family diversity. Hence there is a need for further research examining more related attitudinal variables as well as other possible predictors of acceptance of family diversity. In addition, for more understanding the associations between changes in family structure and public attitudes toward family diversity, it will be important to analyze longitudinal data in future research. Finally, several implications for family policy must be considered. The current census in Korea does not have a thorough grasp of the numbers of premarital cohabitation, adopted families, homosexual couples, communal families, and so on. To understand the progress of family diversity and implement more comprehensive family policies, it is needed to develop more sophisticated categories of living and relationship patterns in future census.

Changing Views on Family Diversity in Urban Korea

73

With the bleak situation of one out of three marriages ending up in divorce, the practice of remarrying has become the irreversible social trend but as long as the "hoju" system remains intact, many single-parent or remarried families are blocked from establishing a new family identity. Thanks to active campaigning by women's groups, the "hoju" system has been ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court in February 2005. With the court's ruling, the National Assembly is expected to speed up the enactment of a new law to replace the time-old family registry system. As the Korean society moves into the postmodem era, it is important to have an open mind to family diversity. And social systems should undergo changes as well to better accommodate diverse family structures.

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