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영어

The purpose of this study is to find out the features of the Korean family change since 2,000 and to interpret the meaning of the change on the basis of the critical review of both the positive perspective and the negative perspective of the family change in Korea. Through the method of the literature review and the analysis of the various statistics by KOSTAT, it is drawn that explaining the change only by “diversity of family compositions” is not enough to figure out the meaning of the family change in Korea today and that it is needed to go further to approach the change as disintegration of the ‘nuclear’ composed of the married couple and their children. It is also drawn that the disintegration has led to weakening of the long term functions by the family, i. e., the function of life and of the virtues, which shakes the way of human life and the order of our society. Therefore, the present family change in Korea is to be understood as crisis, not as progress. And it is recommended that the family politics in Korea is to be focused on the ways for the healthy functioning and rebuilding the nuclear of the family.