Cross-cultural Research Study on single parent families in Korea and Japan -Gender analysis about single parents unmarried, cohabitation, and married-

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The number of one-parent families has been growing as Japan's fertility rate has been staying so low. People become one-parent families for different reasons such as their single status, separation or spouse's death. Many of them suffer from social prejudice as well as financial difficulties. The purpose of this research was to clarify what creates images toward one-parent families.The survey in Japan was delivered to university students, who have the potential to create a family in near future, in the Kyushu, Kinki, Tokai, and Tokyo districts in Japan in the month of July, 2007. The number of distributed questionnaire sheets was 1796. The number of collected sheets was 1379. The collection rate was 76.8%.It was clarified that the students who were influenced negatively by public opinions and had not studied family studies had negative images toward one-parent families. In order to minimize those negative images, it is necessary to improve home economics education in Japan in which we … More teach family studies including one-parent familiesIn Korea, the questionnaire sheets were delivered to 2000 Korean university students between October 2007 and November 2007. The valid responses were 1605, which was 80.3 % out of the 2000.The findings are as follows : 1. Regarding life course, close to 80% Korean university students wanted to experience life events such as getting a job, marriage and having a child in this particular order. 2. Image toward single parents' child rearing was different depending on the reasons to become single parents : unmarried, divorce, or spouses' death. The most negative image was given to unmarried single parents' child rearing. The most acceptable image was fallen to single parents because of their spouses' death. 3. The Korean university students' positive image toward single parents' child rearing was influenced mostly by the public image toward single parents' child rearing. It showed that socially constructed values make a strong impact on university students. Less