The family relationships and the policy implications of dual-earner families with school-aged children

Original Article

Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association 1992;30(3):285-305.

논문편 : 학동기 자녀를 둔 맞벌이가족의 가족관계와 정책적 제언

김양희, 박충선, 서동인, 신화용, 조병은, 최규련

중앙대학교 가정관리학과

The family relationships and the policy implications of dual-earner families with school-aged children

Yang Hee Kim, Chung Sun Park, Dong In Suh, Hwa Yong Shin, Byung Eun Cho, Kyu Reon Choi

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to describe the current status of dual-earner families in Seoul. The specific aims of this study were to examine the dynamics of marital relationship, parent-child relationship and old mother-daughter/daughter in law relationship in the same family. The sample consised of 265 dual-earner families was selected based on wives' jobs, primarily non-professional. The information was gathered from working couples and their school-aged children. The findings of this study were as follows: 1. Sex role attitude of husbands was more traditional than their wives. Therefore, housework sharing of husbands was very low and wives' perception of inequity was high. Wives' marital satisfaction was affected by the wives' perception of inequity, joint leisure activity, sexual satisfaction, and wives' job satisfaction. Husbands' marital satisfaction was affected by sexual satisfaction, perceived difficulties and problems of the husbands caused by wives' employment, and the degree of their housework participation. 2. The emotional uneasiness of children during mothers' absence was reported. The communication about mothers' job was helpful to gain children's understanding toward mothers' job. Mothers suffered from guilty feeling of neglecting their children in spite of their good performance of mothering role. 3. The employed daughters/daughters in law perceived high rewards and low cost in relationships with their mothers/mothers in law. The perceived quality of daughter-mother relationship was higher with low cost and high rewards than that of daughter in law/mother in law. Finally practical and policy implications were suggested.