Yean-Ju Lee

Sons, Daughters, and Intergenerational Support in Taiwan

This study focuses on married childrens financial support for their parents in Taiwan. It is often assumed that economic and social changes accompanying industrialization will drastically weaken parental power and thus reduce the support from adult children to parents. The data in this article, however, show that the vast majority of married children, both sons and daughters, provided net financial suppor for their parents during the previous year. The socioeconomic characteristics of the parents and children in the families where financial transfers occurred indicate that the altruism/corporate group model best portrays intergenerational transactions during the period of rapid economic growth.

Married Women's Employment in Rapidly Industrializing Societies: Examples from East Asia

A variety of explanations have addressed the phenomenon of secular change in married womens employment in rapidly industrializing countries. These include theoretical frameworks that emphasize female labor supply, the conditions of labor demand, patriarchal values, the international division of labor, and the effects of exported industrialization. This article examines two societies (South Korea and Taiwan) that showed considerable similarity in female labor supply conditions, female labor force participation, and cultural values 20 years ago but have since diverged in dramatic and puzziling ways. Using aggregate and microlevel data, this article shows that the emergent differences in married womens employment are best explained by the intersection of labor supply (similar in the two cases) and demand (markedly different). The article highlights the impact of government policy and foreign loan investment in shaping the nature of labor demand during rapid export-led industrialization in both countries.

Intergenerational financial support among Whites, African Americans, and Latinos

Recent empirical research has found that interhousehold exchanges of goods and services are more frequent among Whites than among African Americans or Latinos. This study explores racial and ethnic differences in kin support and focuses on financial support that adult children receive from their parents. We decompose the observed group differences in the incidence of adult childrens receiving assistance into those explained by behavioral patterns and those explained by resources. Contrary to earlier observations that financial support among poor, minority families is mostly to ease short-term crises, our results suggest that minority parents may be more concerned than White parents with the long-term effects of financial support for their children. When providing financial support, African American and Latino parents, more than White parents, favor adult children who acquire greater human capital resources (education and income). Key Words: African Americans, financial transfers, intergenerational support, Latinos, parents. One apparent conclusion from previous studies on racial and ethnic differences in kin support is that African Americans and Latinos are more likely to live in extended households than are Whites (Angel & Tienda, 1982; Hofferth, 1984). This difference in living arrangements has been the basis of numerous studies that emphasize the importance of kin networks among African American and Latino families. Studies based on ethnographic methods and small-scale surveys have argued for this premise (e.g., Hays & Mindel, 1973; Martin & Martin, 1978; Stack, 1974), and large-scale representative data have confirmed their findings (e.g., Aquilino, 1990; Hofferth, 1984). Recent studies, however, find that the interhousehold exchange of monetary and social support is more frequent among Whites than among African Americans or Latinos, although findings on group differences in some detailed aspects of interhousehold support are not yet conclusive. African American and Latino adult children are less likely than White adult children to receive financial and social support from their parents (Cox & Rank, 1992; Hogan, Eggebeen, & Clogg,1993; Hogan, Hao, & Parish, 1990; McGarry & Schoeni, 1995). It appears that the racial and ethnic patterns of interhousehold assistance vary according to the family context (such as different kin relationships and stages in the life cycle), as well as according to the type of support (e.g., Aytac & Waite, 1992; Eggebeen & Hogan, 1990; Hoyert, 1990; MacDonald, 1989; Silverstein & Waite, 1992; Waite & Harrison,1992). In particular, the lower likelihood of interhousehold kin support among African Americans and Latinos, compared with Whites, does not seem to hold for support for the aged. Among the aged, African Americans receive more informal support than do Whites, whether controlling for income and education or not (Mindel, Wright, & Starrett, 1986). Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, Silverstein and Waite (1992) find that, controlling for economic and demographic characteristics, middle-aged African American women are less likely than middle-aged White women to provide instrumental support for noncoresiding relatives. After age 65, however, African American women are more likely to receive instrumental support and about as likely as White women to provide such support to noncoresiding relatives or friends. These findings seem to be consistent with the observations that older African Americans serve as an important resource for kin support and that they enjoy higher social status than their White counterparts (Gibson, 1986; Lubben & Becerra, 1987). A major research question in racial and ethnic comparisons of extended family living has been whether the higher prevalence of the extended family among African Americans and Latinos is a way of coping with economic difficulty or is a result of cultural preferences. …

Changes in the Family Status of Elderly Women in Korea

As a result of sharp declines in fertility and mortality, the aging of the Korean population has proceeded rapidly and is likely to continue in full force for some time. In societies such as Korea, where families traditionally have been the only efficient source of support for the elderly, an aging population poses a threat because families have fewer descendants available to care for increasing numbers of surviving elderly persons. The exact magnitude of the reduction in the supply of kin depends on details of the demographic trends and cannot be evaluated a priori. In this paper we use family-status life tables to assess the effects of changes in demographic processes on the family status of elderly women and to project trends in elderly women’s family status.

RISK FACTORS IN THE RAPIDLY RISING INCIDENCE OF DIVORCE IN KOREA

For just over a decade between 1990 and 2003, the crude divorce rate tripled from 1.1 to 3.5 in Korea. Using the combined data from two nationally representative surveys of women conducted in 1997 and 2002, this study examines the risk factors of divorce and attempts to provide insights into the rising divorce rate in Korea. The findings show that the period effects on the probability of divorce remain unexplained after taking into account several risk factors. This may suggest societal-level transformations in normative regimes regarding divorce, which seem to have accelerated after the economic recession in the late 1990s. Independent of period effects, womens employment in white-collar occupations and declining fertility increase the risk of divorce, whereas womens unpaid work in the family business and college education lower the risk of divorce. Divorce rates are highest in the middle stage of marital duration in Korea.

Overview of Trends and Policies on International Migration to East Asia: Comparing Japan, Taiwan and South Korea:

This overview article examines the major similarities and differences among the three countries in East Asia — Japan, Taiwan and Korea — in terms of their immigration policies and observed flows as an introduction to three country-specific papers and a contribution on the simulation of economic impacts of different migration scenarios in Asia. These papers are from a two-year project, “From Origin to Destination: Policy Alternatives for Managing Two-Way Migration Pathways in Asia,” funded by the Korea Foundation. The papers demonstrate important common patterns, including the special treatment of ethnic return migrants, population aging and demands for low-skilled migrant workers in the industrial and service sectors, the strict policy on temporary migration for low-skilled migrant workers, and the concentration of women in marriage migration and as carers in labor migration.

Recent Developments and Implications of Policies on Ethnic Return Migration in Korea

The Visit and Employment Program (VEP) for ethnic Koreans with foreign citizenship was adopted in 2007 to resolve the 2001 ruling by the Constitutional Court on a provision of the Overseas Koreans Act which calls for differential treatment of overseas ethnic Koreans. Policies specific to ethnic return migration and international migration in general are continuously evolving in Korea. While the policy directives still tend to emphasize economic development, they seem to move toward a point of balance where potentially conflicting goals of promoting human rights, economic development, and a stable civic society can be achieved.

The Extended Family: Disharmony and Divorce in Korea

Abstract Purpose Previous studies as well as anecdotes have indicated that parental involvement in adult children’s marital conflicts is fairly common in Korea. This study attempts to explain how in-law conflicts – arguably a structural outcome of the traditional Confucian family – lead to marital disruption in contemporary families. Methodology/approach This study adopts the hypotheses of the corporate group, mother identity, and gendered-role expectations, which are instrumental to understanding the social context in which the legacy of the Confucian culture interacts with the knowledge-based neoliberal economy to revive in-law conflicts. Divorced-couple data are from in-depth interviews and court rulings, and their analysis illustrates the trajectories of marital breakdown. Findings The findings provide support for the hypotheses. Parents, especially mothers, who heavily invested time and money in their children’s education and career building meddle in their marriages in hopes to ensure the best returns to their investment. Normative prescriptions of gendered roles provide references for the parents regarding the roles of their children and children-in-law, and the gaps between their expectations and perceived reality trigger parental meddling and in-law conflicts. Adult children who are indebted to the parents for their status formation may acquiesce to the parental intervention. Social implications In the traditional patriarchal family, in-law conflicts were restricted to mother- and daughter-in-law relationships, but are now extended to mother- and son-in-law relationships, reflecting a paradoxical twist in gender-role expectations. This chapter suggests that heavy parental investment in their children can have an unexpected consequence increasing the probability of adult children’s marital disruption.