These days, Korea has experienced changes in functions and structures of families due to low berth rate, ageing society and social and economic changes. In particular, according to improved social and financial ability of women, the number of working ...
These days, Korea has experienced changes in functions and structures of families due to low berth rate, ageing society and social and economic changes. In particular, according to improved social and financial ability of women, the number of working mothers is increasing. Their most serious problem is nursing of children and stress from it is increasing. Such changes are thought to have influences on relations between infants and nursing environment. Therefore, to release difficulty of traditional roles of working mothers who have infants and stress from it in terms of psychological and emotional welfare, nursing stress should be identified, difference between various variables should be considered and policies to support infants nursing should be examined. This study has a great meaning in that there are few studies on nursing stress targeting working mothers who have infants.
This study aims at speculating nursing stress of working mothers who have infants and infant nursing supportive policy expected by working mothers and presenting political plans based on the results. To achieve the goals of the study, the following questions are presented:
1. How is nursing stress of working mothers?
1-1. Is there any difference between types of nursing stress?
1-2. In there any difference between nursing stresses according to social and demographical variables?
1-3. Is there any difference between nursing stresses according to variables on children?
2. What is the nursing supporting policy expected by working mothers?
This study targeted 202 working mothers who sent their children to national, public, corporational, job, and private nursing facilities in Seoul, Daejeon and Gwangju .
The tools to measure nursing stress of working mothers consists of 50 questions as follows: 20 questions developed by Kim Ki-hyeon and Gang Hee-gyeong (1997), 6 questions on social and demographical characteristics of working mothers, 4 questions on variables on their children, 5 questions on nursing variables, and 4 questions on infant nursing support variables.
For statistical management of the data collected, this study used the SPSS for Windows ver 11.0 .
The results of this study are summarized as follows:
First, the degree of nursing stress of working mothers who have infants was midium and it was very significant in every sub-variable. The most serious problems in respect to nursing of infants were quality of nursing service, education and financial burden of nursing.
Second, nursing stress according to social and demographical variables of working mothers showed significant difference according to monthly family income, types of jobs, and types of families. Working others whose monthly income is irregular or above 5,000,000 won showed high degree of guilt about nursing their children by other people, and in respect to types of job, working mothers who are engaged in production and simple labor had high stress. Public servants showed high burden as parents and destress. In respect to types of families, nuclear families showed big burden as parents.
Third, nursing stress in respect to variables on children showed significant difference according to sex of children: working mothers who have girls showed high burden and destress than those who have boys.
Fourth, most of the working mothers sent their infants to play rooms(Noribang) and they wanted job nursing system. 80% of working mothers spent below 500,000 for monthly nursing expense, 69% had burden due to nursing expense, which indicates that working mothers have burden, and above 80% of the working mothers spent nursing expense themselves without any support. Although they have financial support for nursing expense, it was very low, and above 80% of the working mothers hoped that the government shares nursing expense with them.
The supportive policies hoped by working mothers who have infants are presented as follows: They wanted financial support for nursing expense, nursing facilities and support from job in good order; Next, they wanted support for nursing facilities and nursing expenses and support from their jobs.
Based on the results above, this study presents the following suggestions:
First, actual counselling to decrease nursing stress of working mothers who have infants and parents education should be provided. As plans to decrease nursing stress, the following programs should be prepared: support of nursing expense, expansion of nursing facilities at job and national and public facilities support, qualitative and quantitative improvement of nursing facilities, flexible management of the facilities in time, temporary rest program for nursing by men as well as women, flexible management of temporary rest period and guaranty of stable income during the rest, various infant support programs, support for nursing by working mothers having nuclear families.
Second, as this study found that most of the working mothers who have infants in this study sent their children to play rooms while they were working, institutional plans and national benefits for play rooms and home nursing programs of less than three year-old children should be given and part of the facilities should be designated as time-extended facilities.
Third, this study did not identify nursing stress of the working mothers who did not send their children to nursing facilities, but made them nursed at home and the supportive programs hoped by them. Therefore, we have to consider future studies on them
Fourth, this study targeted only working mothers who have infants, but as working fathers may have difficulty in nursing with their working wives, we have to consider future study on fathers who have infants.
Fifth, this study targeted working mothers whose husbands are also working, but we have to consider further studies on nursing stress of working mothers according to various types of families in current society.
Sixth, this study used questionnaire for the study, but future studies should consider qualitative methods such as interview to carefully identify nursing stress and infant nursing programs hoped by their parents.