都市 中流家族의 生活周期에 관한 一考察

Abstract

The family and marriage have been one of the most popular and significant topics Korean sociology has treated with in the short history of empirical approach during the last decade or so. Considering the weight the family and kinship group had occupied in the traditional Korean society, no one would deny the importance of the family studies Among the abundant studies on the family life, however, analysis of the life cycle of the family and its implication on the family life has been relatively neglected. Only two studies can be found which mainly dealt with demographic analysis of the family life cycle in rural Korea. The present study is an incipient attempt at analysis of the family life cycle and its relationships with other socio-economic aspects of the family life in the urban setting. There are three major approaches in the study of the family life cycle ; 1) defining stages of the family life cycle in a community on the bosis of census and other demographic data and stipulating some implications of the changes in the life cycle on general social change; 2) the family life cycle as an independent variable explaining some socio-economic, chiefly economic, variables; 3) the family life cycle as a developmental process of the family which exerts significant influences upon the structural and functional alterations with in the family. The major limitation of the present study has to do with data used for analysis of the family life cycle. The data were originally collected for the Social Anthropological Study of Urban Middle Class Families in Seoul conducted by a team of sociologists and anthropologists under the directorship of Prof. Hyo Chai Lee. Some of the data collected by them can be readily utilized for the family life cycle analysis. But they are not originally designed to be used for this specific purpose. Demographic approach was not intended in this proper. Lack of vital statisites materials and other necessary data made it impossible to make an attempt at this sort of study. Hence, the major tasks made by this paper have to do with some analysis of the family life cycle as an independent variable and as a significant aspect of the family life explaining many other social, economic and pshychological factors of the family life. Due to the limitations imposed upon by the already collected data, the task of defining stages of the family life cycle was not so easy. Duration of marriage was taken up as the major factor determining the family life cycle stages. Them. age of husband and wife and the age composition of children were added as auxiliary factors. Considering the combined criteria of age of the household head and his wife and their children. we have clustered ton initial categories of duration of marriage into four major stages of the family life cycle. 1) Pre-school age families; 2) School-age families; 3) Families of adolescents ; 4) Families of grown-ups and launcing Children. One additional category is added, ie., widowed families. It has been found that family size increases up to the third stage of the family life cycle defined by the present study diminishing very slowly from then on and abruptly decreasing at the widowed family stage. Number of children. both son and daughter, also shows similar tendency except that number of sans do not diminish as sharply as that of daughters. Perhaps this is due to the relatively early marriage of girls and some tendency of preserving three-generation family in this society. Some selected secio-economic factors are analyzed in terms of the family life cycle. Family income and expenditure, house ownership, number of rooms used, refrigerator and TV ownership, and the area of residence all manifest meaningful trend according to the family life cycle much better than age of householder or other demographic factors. Social factors such as education. occupation, mass communication behavior, wife's work career, wife's social participation, ancestral worship practice, and relationship with Kinship group also vary in accordance with the changing stage of the family cycle. The main aspect of this study has to do with changing picture of the structure and functioning of the family relationships. Even though data are limited, marital adjustment. husband wife relationship in terms of compatibility and companionship, of role relationship and power status have shown significant differences among different life cycle stages of the family. As pointed out earlier, this study has its own Imitation mainly in terms of data utilized for analysis. Nevertheless, the general findings strongly suggest a promising possibility of using the family life cycle as an independent or explanatory variable, sometimes as a very good intervening variable, in examining changing patterns of the family life in socio-economic as well as interactional, status and role relationship characteristics of the family.