Neul Purun Center Forum (Nov. 26, 2008) Translated by Kang, Shin Woo
Introduction
1. Aim of Study
The number of child-rearing unwed mothers has been on an increase of the late. In particular, whereas fewer unwed mothers stay at unwed mothers’ home, the number of child-reading unwed mothers who stay at their own home has been increasing. Interest in teenage unwed mothers who raise their own children has increased too.
In 1998, 1.2% of unwed mothers staying at unwed mothers’ home were raising their own children; the figure rose to 31.7% in 2005. As of 2001, 40.7% of child-rearing unwed mothers staying at unwed mothers’ home are teenagers. (Kang, 2002) This points to that a change needs to be made to the service for unwed mothers which has up to now developed around adoption. The Ministry of Women in 2005 stated that 68.3% of unwed mothers opt for adoption, and it is likely that many of them are teenage unwed mothers. The most frequent reason for adoption was the lack of economic capacity (42%). When asked what they found most difficult after adoption, sense of guilt about their children (46.1%) and regrets about giving up their children (34.6%) (Huh & Roh, 2005)
Nearly 90% of unwed mothers thought teenagers could be parents, and 37.7% wanted to raise their own children if financial support is available, (Kim et al., 2006) illustrating well that more than few unwed mothers will choose to raise their own children if financial support become available for them. Such change reflects a need to develop policies and services that are specifically tailored for teenage child-rearing unwed mothers. However, in Korea, much effort has been focused on preventive policies and the issue of adoption with regards to teenage unwed mothers and there is no specialized social support system for teenage unwed mothers who raise their own children.
Amidst such changes, online social network between teenage unwed mothers has grown rapidly as they exchange information on child-rearing. The cases of teenage child-rearing unwed mothers have been covered by the public media. Instead of ‘unwed mother,’ they call themselves ‘little moms,’ suggesting an active notion of giving birth and raising own child in teen. Lee Ju-young, the author of “Diary of Lee Jy-young, an 18-year-old little mom,” gave birth when she was 17 and is raising her own child. When she revealed her life through her personal webpage, over 230 thousand people visited it on a single day. She went on to appear on TV shows and published the book and is now running an online community on CyWorld, a Korean social network website, with 6,281 members. Since 2004 teenagers who have chosen to raise their own children have received much attention; on search websites such as Naver, Daum and CyWorld, tens of related online communities can be found.
The number of child-rearing unwed mothers is thus increasing, but a survey tells us that 56.6% raise their children without any support from the father, family, relatives or social network at large. It is most certain that these mothers struggle financially, emotionally and in raising their children.
It is true that many child-rearing unwed mothers are struggling in Korea as social support them falls behind, but teenage unwed mothers who raise their own children are likely to fall out of their education, leading to negative impact on their employment prospect and eventually to poverty. Also, the negative perception of teenage unwed mother means that social isolation adds to their struggle; this harms not only the welfare of unwed mothers themselves, but also that of their children. Currently, there’s virtually no study of the welfare status of teenage child-rearing mothers. Those mothers who stay at their own home are particularly at risk as they fall in the blind spot; again, we have yet to see a thorough survey of their situation.
Hence it is a significant and urgent matter to survey the lives of teenage child-rearing unwed mothers, both those at group homes and at their own home, and to develop social services and support network for them. To this end, this survey analyses the conditions for childbirth and child-rearing of teenage unwed mothers, surveys their demands for services for child-rearing, and provides suggestions for social support programme aimed at improving the child-rearing conditions for teenage unwed mothers.
For more information, please refer to the attached file.
