Changing Family Structure and Its Implications for Social Inequality in a "Strong" Family Country: Single Parents and Their Children in South Korea

1
Changing Family Structure and Its Implications
for Social Inequality in a "Strong" Family
Country Single Parents and Their Children in
South Korea

• Hyunjoon Park
• Sociology, University of Pennsylvania
• Jaesung Choi
• Economics, University of Pennsylvania

2
Family Contexts in Korea

• Changing family structure
• Increasing international marriage (between a
  Korean man and a foreign woman)
• Declining fertility
• Rising divorce
• Weak welfare state limited public support to
  families
• Implications of changing family structure for
  social inequality given the weak welfare state

3
Demography of Divorce

• Trends in divorce
• Socioeconomic and demographic determinants of
  divorce
• Living arrangements of divorced parents and their
  children
• Consequences of growing up with a divorced parent
  for childrens education and well-being
• Grandparents and children of divorced parents

4
Rising Divorce
5
Park Raymo (2010)
6
Comparative Level of Divorce
Park Raymo (2010) cf. Andersson Philipov
(2001)
7
Educational Differentials in the Risk of Divorce
Park Raymo (2010)
8
Weak Welfare State Social Spending on Family in
Cash, Services and Tax Measures, in percentage of
GDP, in 2001
9
Implications of Rising Divorce for Social
Inequality

• Growing divorce, especially among the low
  educated
• Weak welfare state that provides only very
  limited public support to (single-parent)
  families
• Limited economic opportunity for Korean women
• Disparities in economic and social resources
  available for children from two-parent and
  single-parent families
• Growing potential of family structure as a
  mechanism of intergenerational transmission of
  advantage

10
But,,, We Have Strong Family Ties!!

• Family as an essential safety net for vulnerable
  members
• Reher (1988) priority of families over public
  institutions to help vulnerable family members in
  Southern European countries
• Strong family ties in Asia
• strong families in Southern European societies as
  lying between weak families in northern Europe
  and North America and much stronger families in
  Asia (Reher 1998)
• A study of grandparent co-residence and its
  impact on parent-child interaction in Japan
  (Raymo, Park, and Iwasawa 2010)
• But, is family still strong in contemporary Asia?

11
Our Research Questions

• Consequences of growing up with a single parent
  for childrens education in Korea
• Distinguishing single-mother and single-father
  families
• Data do not allow distinguishing widowhood and
  divorce
• To what extent do children of single parents live
  with their grandparents?
• If coresidence can be considered as an indicator
  of family ties
• Does co-residence with grandparents moderate
  negative relationship between single parenthood
  and childrens education?

12
Data and Variables

• Program for International Student Assessment
  (PISA) 2009
• From the international dataset of more than 60
  countries, data for Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the
  US are extracted
• Target population 15-year-old students
• Sample size about 5,000 for Korea, Japan,
  Taiwan, and US
• Educational outcomes standardized reading, math,
  and science test scores
• Five plausible values for each test
• Approximately mean 500 points, standard
  deviation 100 points among all OECD countries

13
Key Variables

• Current living arrangements of children 6 groups
• Two parents living with grandparents without
  grandparents
• Single mothers living with grandparents without
  grandparents
• Single fathers living with grandparents without
  grandparents
• Socioeconomic background of students
• Parental education
• Number of books at home
• Cultural possessions
• Home educational resources

14
Methods

• Regression analysis of reading (math and science,
  separately) scores predicted by
• Model 1 (gross effect) living arrangements only
• Model 2 (net effect) Model 1 Family SES

15
Living Arrangements of 15-Year-Old Students
16
Students living with grandparents
17
Gross Differences from Two Parents_NO_GP in
Reading Scores
S-Mother NO_GP
S-Mother GP
S-Father NO_GP
S-Father GP
Two-Parents GP
S-Mother NO_GP
S-Mother GP
S-Father NO_GP
S-Father GP
Two-Parents GP
USA
KOREA
18
Differences from Two Parents_NO_GP in Reading
Scores
S-Mother NO_GP
S-Mother GP
S-Father NO_GP
S-Father GP
Two-Parents GP
S-Mother NO_GP
S-Mother GP
S-Father NO_GP
S-Father GP
Two-Parents GP
KOREA
USA
19
Gross Differences from Two Parents_NO_GP in
Reading Scores
Two-Parents GP
S-Mother NO_GP
S-Mother GP
S-Father NO_GP
S-Father GP
S-Mother NO_GP
S-Mother GP
S-Father NO_GP
S-Father GP
Two-Parents GP
Taiwan
Japan
20
Differences from Two Parents_NO_GP in Reading
Scores
Two-Parents GP
S-Mother NO_GP
S-Mother GP
S-Father NO_GP
S-Father GP
S-Mother NO_GP
S-Mother GP
S-Father NO_GP
S-Father GP
Two-Parents GP
Taiwan
Japan
21
Major Findings

• Relatively smaller gaps in test scores by family
  structure in Korea (Taiwan and Japan as well)
  than in the US, once family SES is taken into
  account
• However, gross disadvantages associated with
  single fatherhood are substantial in Korea
  (Taiwan and Japan)
• Not strong evidence of differences between
  single-parent families with grandparents and
  without grandparents in Korea (and US)
• Some evidence of benefits of living with
  grandparents particularly among single-father
  families in Taiwan and Japan

22
Issues

• The considerably low level of coresidence with
  their parents among Korean single mothers (whose
  child is 15-year old)
• What do family ties mean to single mothers?
• Do they receive other kinds of support from their
  parents even if not living together?
• Do single mothers prefer less direct
  relationships with their parents?
• How do we analyze the effect of grandparents on
  childrens education?
• Selection
• Measurement of coresidence (duration)
• Longitudinal information on living arrangements
  and childrens educational outcomes