Women's Attitudes Toward Family Formation and Life Stage Transitions: A Longitudinal Study in Korea
| Published date | 01 October 2015 |
| Author | Adam Ka Lok Cheung,Erin Hye‐Won Kim |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12222 |
| Date | 01 October 2015 |
E H-W K National University of Singapore
A K L C Hong Kong Institute of Education∗
Women’s Attitudes Toward Family Formation
and Life Stage Transitions: A Longitudinal Study
in Korea
Although it is well documented that family atti-
tudes become less traditional over cohorts, lit-
tle is known about how individuals’ attitudes
change over time. More research also is needed
on how the within-individual changes relate
to important life stage events such as mar-
riage, childbirth, an d transitions in education
and work. Evidence is particularly lacking in
Asian countries, which have socioeconomic and
cultural contexts very different from those in the
West. To ll these gaps in the literature, the
authors analyzed the attitudes toward family for-
mation of Korean women in their 20s and 30s
(N=6,042). Individual xed effects regression
using the panel data from the Korean Longitu-
dinal Survey of Women and Families revealed
that women became more traditional over time
and that transitions to marriage and mother-
hood partly accounted for the change. These
ndings are explained within the context of very
Lee Kuan YewSchool of Public Policy, National University
of Singapore, No. 02-04 469B Bukit Timah Rd., Singapore
259771, Singapore (sppkhw@nus.edu.sg).
∗Department of Social Sciences, D3-1/F-58, Hong Kong
Institute of Education, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, N.T.,Hong
Kong.
This article was edited by Yingchun Ji.
Key Words: family attitudes, Korea, life course,low fertility,
panel data, women.
low fertility in Korea and have implications for
other rapidly changing societies.
Family-related attitudes are key correlates of
various family processes and outcomes, includ-
ing family formation and dissolution, the divi-
sion of household labor, and childbearing and
parenting. Despite the important theoretical and
policy implications associated with the forma-
tion of these attitudes there is little systematic
knowledge about it. Furthermore, researchers
often argue that these attitudes determine behav-
iors, not vice versa. In particular, how family
attitudes change as one gets older is seldom
examined, although past research has paid exten-
sive attention to the liberalizing trend in family
attitudes across cohorts. This lack of understand-
ing is in part due to a lack of longitudinal data at
the individual level. In fact, little is known about
the within-person changes in family attitudes
over time. The available longitudinal evidence
comes predominantly from the United States,
and no studies from Asia have been conducted.
Family formation and dissolution, childbirth,
the transition from school to work, unemploy-
ment, and retirement are important life stage
transitions that most people experience during
their lifetime. These transitions may change
what people experience, how they dene them-
selves, and with whom they interact, thereby
inuencing their attitudes. A few studies,
1074 Journal of Marriage and Family 77 (October 2015): 1074–1090
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12222
Women’s Attitudes Toward Family Formation in Korea 1075
mostly conducted in the West, suggest that
some of these life stage transitions indeed affect
family-related attitudes (e.g., Baxter, Buch-
ler, Perales, & Western, 2015; Fan & Marini,
2000; Trent & South, 1992), and more research,
especially in the Asian context, is needed.
We lled these gaps in the literature by
analyzing the attitudes toward family formation
of women in their 20s and 30s in South Korea
(hereafter Korea). Data came from the Korean
Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families
(KLoWF; http://klowf.kwdi.re.kr/main.do?
sLang=EN), a nationally representative longi-
tudinal survey conducted in 2007, 2008, 2010,
and 2012. We constructed a multiple-item scale
that summarizes family-formation attitudes—
namely, whether and when respondents think
women should marry and have a child.
In this study, using cross-sectional ordinary
least squares (OLS) regression, we analyzed
how women’s attitudes relate to their ages.
This analysis, in which age and cohort effects
are indistinguishable, served as a preliminary
examination of age patterns in family attitudes.
Second, with individual xed effects (FE)
regression, we investigated changes in attitudes
over time. Last, using life stage transitions
as covariates in the cross-sectional and FE
regression analyses, we examined the extent
to which the transitions explain the age gra-
dient in attitudes across individuals and the
within-individual changes over time.
The cross-sectional results show that older
women tended to hold more traditional atti-
tudes than their younger counterparts. Over
the 4-year period between 2008 and 2012,
women’s attitudes became more, not less, tra-
ditional. Marriage and childbearing affected
both the cross-individual differences and the
within-individual changes in attitudes, while no
evidence was found for the effects of educa-
tional attainment, work, and living arrangements
with parents. We explain these ndings within
the context of a remarkable delay and decline
in marriage and fertility in Korea and draw
implications for other societies where strong
family-centered and gender-divided cultures lag
behind rapid economic and social changes.
P L C S
Differences and Changes in Attitudes
Attitudes toward family-related issues such as
marriage, divorce, childbearing, and gender
roles are related to family-related behaviors
and decision making. The previous theoretical
literature has tended to consider family-related
attitudes as explanatory factors for family out-
comes: These attitudes are the lenses through
which individuals interpret the symbolic mean-
ing of their actions and relationships with other
people, and, hence, the attitudes affect people’s
intentions and decisions regarding fertility
and marriage (Balbo, Billari, & Mills, 2013;
Davis & Greenstein, 2009; Willoughby, Hall,
& Luczak, 2015). Empirical research has con-
rmed some hypotheses from the literature—for
example, that women who hold traditional
attitudes toward marriage are more likely to get
married and tend to marry earlier (Clarkberg,
Stolzenberg, & Waite, 1995; Sassler & Schoen,
1999).
It is widely documented that traditional norms
of universal marriage and childbearing have
been in decline in the United States and some
other Western countries (Gubernskaya, 2010;
Kraaykamp, 2012; Scott, Alwin, & Braun, 1996;
Thornton & Young-DeMarco, 2001), and this
forms the basis for a cultural explanation for
the decline in marriage and fertility. Remain-
ing single, cohabiting, bearing children out of
wedlock, and divorce are more accepted nowa-
days than in the past. As one of the main mech-
anisms driving the change, cohort replacement
has received extensive attention in the literature
(Brewster & Padavic, 2000; Davis& Greenstein,
2009; Thornton & Young-DeMarco, 2001). The
cohort-replacement hypothesis posits that soci-
etal attitudes change as older generations are
replaced by younger cohorts, who are less likely
to embrace traditional norms.
One of the criticisms of the past literature on
family-related attitudes is that most past research
has assumed that attitudes are static over the
life course (Willoughby, 2010), as does the
cohort-replacement hypothesis. In other words,
the older generation is thought to be as conser-
vative as it wasthe past, whereas members of the
younger generation will continue to be as non-
traditional as they are today. Using panel data,
which measure attitudes repeatedly, more recent
studies (although there are only a few to date)
have started to explore within-person changes in
these attitudes, especially in younger cohorts.
Three empirical studies in the United States
corroborate the pattern of liberalizing trends in
gender role attitudes. In an analysis of data from
the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth,
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