現代韓国の家族意識への接近

ソウル調査を中心として

抄録

In order to gain an understanding of the contemporary Asian family, it is necessary to establish some perspective of “development and family”. From our viewpoint, any structural family change will come from the alteration of family norms-aspects of which include family behavior, ideas, and consciousness. In rapidly changing societies, the gaps between these particular aspects are especially large. In conjunction with the Korean Women's Development Institute, we conducted interviews with 1608 male and female residents of Seoul concerning family consciousess.
In 1989, Korea drafted reforms in its family law, which took effect in 1991. The reforms were largely concerned with equal rights for men and women within the family, but touched only slightly on the traditional relationship between generations. Thus, in spite of recent efforts at feminist revision, the Koren family still retains in legal terms its Confucianist pattern.
However, our data on family consciousness show considerable changes regarding the meaning of having children and preference for boys amongst the different generations. On the other hand, even though 77% of the respondents live as a nuclear family, they still consider the family as large and extended. A longer, more thorough observation is needed to understand these gaps in perception.