The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA) has published June issue of Health and Welfare Policy Forum, No. 308, "Changes in Family and Population Behavior and Their Policy Implications: 2021 Family and Fertility Survey."

Foreword: Population, Family, Society: From Instrumental Reproduction to Value Reproduction

Article I: "The 2021 Family and Fertility Survey: Its New Features and Their Significance," Park Jongseo, KIHASA

The 2021 Family and Fertility Survey is a new name for the National Fertility and Family Health and Welfare Survey that had been conducted by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs every three years. This article introduces the features that have been newly added to the Survey and explains their significance. Considering that marriage and childbirth are no longer universal life events, in the 2021 Survey was intended to the understanding life without marriage and children as well as life within marriage. This article was aimed also at grasping the diversity and flexibility of family forms without presupposing the typical attributes of the family. The 2021 Survey was redirected and its sample was redesigned to match it. The respondents to the previous survey were married women aged 15 to 49, but the 2021 survey takes as its espondents adult men and women aged 19 to 49 and their spouses and single and married people, all integrated into one sample. The survey was reorganized to examine the whole process of family formation from adolescence through the integrated sample, and to observe the implementation of population behaviors such as marriage and childbirth within and outside the system of legal family.

Article II: "Some Key Characteristics of Marriage and Cohabitation," Byoun Soo-Jung, KIHASA

The majority of partnerships in Korea are legal marriages, but there are also cohabitation relationships where two people live together unmarried. Given the diversity in partnerships, 「The National Family and Fertility Survey」 separately investigated marriage and cohabitation. Due to the marital status classification that has been traditionally used in related surveys and studies, the characteristics of partnerships have been mainly limited to legal marital relationships. As a result, the characteristics of cohabitation relationship are not well revealed, and there is a limit to a practical and comprehensive understanding of the partnerships in Korean society. The current study explores the characteristics of marriage and cohabitation using the results of 「The National Family and Fertility Survey」, and also examines the similarities and differences between marriage and cohabitation in several aspects. Although marriage and cohabitation are legally different from each other, they have similar features. In order to clearly understand the diversity of partnerships in Korea, it is necessary to accurately figure out the phenomenon. It is important to generate related statistics and data in the future in that at the present it isit is difficult to grasp the situation due to the lack of information or data on the cohabitation. Moreover, there is a need to bring into the social protection system those who have been excluded from it only because they are outside the legal framework.

Article III: "Childbearing Characteristics in Korea and Their Policy Implications," Chang Insu, KIHASA

This article aimed at providing implications for further research and policy by examining the main characteristics of childbearing behavior using the data of the '2021 Family and Fertility Survey’. Our results of analysis imply that there are many questions, regarding inequality, rearing of children, and late marriage, to take into consideration in a multifaceted manner for enhancing the effectiveness of policies. That is, we need a more complex analysis of childbearing and its various factors in low-fertility policy responses.

Article IV: "Childcare and Its Policy Implications," Kim Eunjung, KIHASA

This article analyzes the state of care for early childhood and elementary school-age children using data from the 2021 Survey of Family and Fertility. The supply of facility services for 0-year-olds fell short of existing demand. In addition, this study found it necessary to expand the supply of not only national and public daycare centers but also national and public kindergartens. In the case of parents of elementary school children, the rate of using other services such as private academies is high even though they wished to use public care services. On the other hand, the percentage of those who wish to use private facilities, such as private education institutions, was quite high. Therefore, public care services need to provide high-quality programs that fully reflect the needs for learning and various activities. Finally as the difficulties in childrearing and physical hardship due to housework were found to be great, it is necessary to expand domestic childcare support along with the provision of appropriate institutional care services.

Article V: "Time Allocation and Work-Life Balance," Cho Sungho, KIHASA

The purpose of this study is to suggest policy implications by analyzing the distribution of time use from the perspective of work-life balance. Measured in terms of the total time spent on work, childcare, and housework, the gender gap was greater among those married than among those unmarried. Respondents found themselves relatively short for time to spend on “leisure,” “other activities,” and “essential activities like eating and sleeping.” The difficulty of work-life balance was felt more among the married than among the unmarried. These results mean that the double burden of married women has not been resolved even though the policy of work-life balance has been continuously promoted since the 2000s. Therefore, it is necessary to create an environment in which parents who do childcare and housework can live with a flexible time structure.

Article VI: "Co-residence with Parents and Intergenerational Transfer of Economic Resources: A Focus on the Characteristics of Unmarried Adults," Choi Sunyoung, KIHASA

This paper examined the proportion of adults under 50 (19-49 years old) living with their parents, and the economic transfers unmarried adults provide to, and receive from their non-coresiding parents. Of the surveyed, 30.1% lived with their parents; 64.1% of unmarried people lived with their parents. Having examined whether, when and why people choose to become housing-independent, this study finds that leaving the parents’ home for a home of their own is not an age-specific normative requirement, but a selection dependent on three life events: marriage, higher education, and employment. The rate of coresidence with parents was lower in men and in those with educational attainment of a four-year college degree or higher, and in those in full-time employment. Access to economic resources and sociocultural support are related to unmarried adults' residential independence. In the relationship with their non-coresiding parents, the respondents were more often transfer providers than they were receivers, and unmarried adults in full-time employment provided financial resources to their parents just like married adults did to theirs.

Article VII: "Reproductive Health Status and Policy," Lee So-Young, KIHASA

Reproductive health as a concept has extended from medical care as a means of physical health to a social concept. The prevalent notion now is that reproductive health should be guaranteed as a right. Drawing on the findings of the Family and Fertility Survey conducted in 2021, this article examines Korean women’s pre-pregnancy reproductive health status, including reproductive health issues and coping strategies, contraceptive knowledge, contraceptive methods, and infertility experience. Also, the current reproductive health policy and its changes are examined. In the future, policies to support reproductive health should be implemented for the purpose of ensuring individual reproductive rights as human rights.

Article VIII: "Gender-Role Values and Attitudes toward Marriage and Children," Lim Jiyoung, KIHASA

The purpose of this article is to understand the current status of gender role values, attitudes toward marriage and children and to suggest its policy implications. The current status of gender role values by gender, age, and marital status and how attitudes toward marriage and childbirth are changing were analyzed using the data from the ‘2021 The National Family and Fertility Survey’ conducted by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs. The traditional values gradually disappeared, and a new value that the family role should be played in an integrated manner according to the situation of the family is spread. The survey respondents thought more flexibly about marriage and childbirth than in the past. However, when deciding on marriage and childbirth, survey respondents responded that economic, social, and institutional requirements were all important. It is understood that they feel burdened in the implimentation of the life course such as marriage and childbirth. Based on the foundings, this paper suggests to create an environment that can reduce the burden when individuals choose to implement the life course such as marriage or childbirth.