The primary focus of this research was to understand the sociodemographic characteristics, pregnancy conditions, social support, and the future plan of teenage unwed mothers in Korea. Based on this Study, the cause and effect relationship between the ...
The primary focus of this research was to understand the sociodemographic characteristics, pregnancy conditions, social support, and the future plan of teenage unwed mothers in Korea. Based on this Study, the cause and effect relationship between the various factors related on the teenage pregnancy was closely examined and the main factors that affect the determination of adoption were investigated. For this research, total 242 unwed mothers were inquiried into the details of their pregnancy, who are composed of 170 unwed mothers who house in six facilities interviewed directly and 72 unwed mothers through the four institutions for the adoption of a young child contacted indirectly. Among them, the number of teenage unwed mothers and unwed mothers with more than twenty ages were 130 and 112, respectively.
The consultation with parents for sex, the sexual attitudes of friend groups, and the contraception were measured by modifying a tool produced by the institute of women's development in 1984. The self-esteem was measured by adapting a tool constructed by Rosenberg in 1965 and changed by Butler and Burton in 1990. The premarital sexual attitudes, the sexual abuse, and the inter-external control scale were measured by modifying the scale of premarital sexual attitudes developed by Boo-Ja Kim (1986), by changing a measurement tool designed by Wha-Jung Jang (1998), and by using a scale adapted from Rotter's (1966) by Cshul-Soo Kim (1973), respectively. The premarital sexual behaviors were measured by adapting a scale produced by Delamater and MacCorquodale (1979). The adoption toward attitudes and expectations regarding parenthood scale designed by Donnelly and Voydanoff (1991).
For data analysis, the frequency, percentage, t-test, X^(2)-test, simple correlation, multiple regression analysis, and path analysis was used. The results of this study are as follows.
First, in the sociodemographic characteristics point of view, the percentage (53.7%) of teen-age unwed mothers is higher than that (46.3%) of an unwed mother over twenty. Even though most of teen-age unwed mothers are from intact and low-class families, the noticeable percentage of them are from more than middle-class families, which points out that the teen-age pregnancy is not a problem of only disadvantaged and low-class families, but a problem of all ordinary families. One-third of teen-age unwed mothers has only the education up to middle school, suggesting that they are suffering from dropping their education due to pregnancy.
On second, based on the result of path analysis between the factors related to the unwed pregnancy, it is noticed that the knowledge of contraception and the premarital sexual attitudes are the important factors affecting the premarital sexual behaviors directly. It is also turned out that the sexual attitudes of friend group causes indirectly the premarital sexual behaviors through the path of the premarital sexual attitudes. It is because that as the sexual attitudes of fiend group is open, the premarital sexual attitudes becomes open, causing the increase of the premarital sexual behaviors. Therefore, the form of group study with friends is appropriate as sexual education for little children and low-grade students of elementary school and the positive sexual education that provides the information on contraception and generative functions of a human being, recognition of the dignity of life, and warning of venereal diseases is also necessary for teen-agers who take an attitude to the premarital sex in some degree.
It is observed in this research that the premarital sexual behaviors and the knowledge on contraception do not have a meaningful effect on the number of pregnancy statistically, suggesting that the number of pregnancy of teen-age unwed mothers does not increase as the premarital sexual behaviors and the knowledge on contraception increase. The reason is that they are very young and thus have low rate of repeatible pregnancy. Besides, the self-esteem and internal control do not have a meaningful effect on their premarital sexual behaviors, originating from their open mind to sex.
On third, the investigated unwed mothers were divided into two groups based on the future plan on their babies: one to choose the rearing and the other to choose the adoption. The analysis on their characteristics shows that while there is not meaningful difference in the sociodemographic characteristics between them, there exists meaningful difference in the attitude toward adoption and expectation regarding parenthood. Survey items were analyzed separately as well as in groups, whose results shows that the group to choose adoption tend to think they don't have ability enough to bring up their babies and take a negative attitude to pregnancy compared with the group to choose rearing. It is also pointed out that while the test that they think rearing bothers further education and graduation is less meaningful, they meaningfully tend to have a negative attitude to rearing itself. The group to choose adoption don't think they are selfish and have economical responsibility for rearing. There is also great possibility that they think rearing would give difficulty in the future marriage. In addition, the group to choose adoption desire higher education and think that the desired ages for marriage and motherhood are higher than those of the group to choose rearing. The research shows that in the case of pregnancy caused by sexual attack, unwed teenage mothers prefer adoption.
Based on this study, it can be concluded that teenage unwed mothers who care about their future prefer adoption and the greatest reason for it is on the economical problem. Therefore, this side view of pregnancy needs to be study further and a counterplan needs to be considered carefully and profoundly.