Gender Equity and the Realization of Fertility Intentions in South Korea

• In Event: 450 - Regular Session. Fertility: Childbearing Decisions in Family Context

Abstract

Growing concerns about low fertility increase the importance of understanding the role of gender equity in fertility decision-making. In South Korea, a country experiencing lowest-low fertility and embedded gender inequity in the family, does gender equity at home predicts a variation in fertility across couples? I test the importance of both household and institutional gender equity on determining the realization of fertility intentions in South Korea. I seek to expand the current literature on gender equity and low fertility by incorporating the lived experience of women’s division of labor and authority within the household. Using three waves (Waves 1, 2, and 3) of the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women & Families, I use logistic regression to test four research hypotheses concerning the fertility effect of gender equity. My sample consists of married women with one child who reported positive fertility intentions at Wave 1. I classify these women into two groups based on the realization of fertility intentions for having a second child by Wave 3. My findings suggest that women whose husbands spent relatively little time on housework and childcare are less likely to realize their intentions for a second child. Women holding traditional attitudes, relative to those with egalitarian attitudes, are less likely to realize their fertility intentions. It is clear that men’s contribution to the family help to realize women’s fertility intentions in South Korea.

Author

• Soo-Yeon Yoon, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign