earticle

영어

The purpose of this study was to identify the factors related to the willingness to have a child, parental age at first child’s birth, and the planned number of children. The data came from the Korean General Social Survey from the Survey Research Center at Sung Kyun Kwan University. The sample data set included 488 men and women between the ages of 18 and 49. The major findings are as follows. First, gender, age, satisfaction with family relations, the value of marriage, the value of family succession, and willingness to increase spending on education significantly affected the willingness to have a child among unmarried and married participants without children. Second, among people willing to have a child, the factors that influenced parental age at first child’s birth were gender, education, satisfaction with household economic condition, the value of marriage, and the willingness to increase spending on education. Third, across the sample, the planned number of children was decided by satisfaction of family relations, the value of childbirth, the value of marriage, and home ownership. Overall, the value of marriage was the factor most strongly associated with the three dependent variables. The more a person agree with living with their partner before marriage, the more willing they were to give birth, the younger they were when they became a parent, and the more children they planned to have. The higher satisfaction of family relations, the higher willingness to have a child, and the more children a participant planned to have. In addition, the more a participant was willing to increase spending on education, the higher their willingness was to have a child and the older they were when they became a parent.