Abstract

A Research on the Current Status of the Unwed Single Parent Family in the Community

and

Policy Support Measures (2010)

                                                                                                  Drs. Haejung Suh, Taeyoon Aha,  Hyunjoo Lee

The purpose of this study is to suggest ways to provide services and supports for the unwed single parent families in the community and look into the health condition, children rearing environments, difficulties in rearing children and desire of independence of them. 

For this, a total of 732 low-income single parent fam ilies which received the supports in accordance with the related legal and were residing in Gyeonggido as of July 2010 were surveyed.  Out of total number of questionnaires, a total of 327 questionnaires were collected (44.7% of collection rate).

According to the survey results regarding the age of the parent of the single parent family, 35.6% of the parent was in his or her 30s. Also, 30.7% of them did not receive the high school education.  Out of total number of respondents, 80.2% of them were living in a rental house and their average monthly rent was KRW 25.54 thousand.  In case of the monthly average income of the families, 35.9% of them were receiving less than KRW 600 thousand and 77.2% of them were receiving KRW 1200 thousand. 

They spent KRW 399.8 thousand for child rearing per month. Most of them (68.2% ) were experiencing financial difficulties in rearing children following the housing problems(12.9% ).  And 6.0% of them showed fear on their children's future. 30.5% of them thought the most required support was housing support such as providing  rental houses, followed by security for basic living (24.5% ) and child rearing support(21.3% ).  In relation to the m atters on welfare for the single parent family, the m ost desired support was the support for children rearing (43.3% ), followed by necessity to change the way people regards the single parent family (14.2% ) and support for job placement (13.4% ), etc. 

Based on such results, I suggested several methods as follows; implem entation of a project to support the daily necessaries and food using a voucher system, provide a customized job placement education according to the age of parents, extend a low-interest rate loan for rent or security deposit for rent, im prove the health condition of both of children and parents, secure statistics and m aterials on actual conditions of the single parent family, and execution of the education for the public service personnels who are taking care of relevant projects and business to improve recognition and human rights.

Key words : unwed single parent families in the community

For the complete article, please go to the link below. It is available in Korean only.

http://www.kumsn.org/kr/?mid=archives_document&document_srl=12874