The purpose of this study is to explore changes in family care by analyzing the process through which the use of postpartum care centers(sanhujoriwon) has become popularized in South Korea. In doing so, the study focuses on changes in perceptions and ...
The purpose of this study is to explore changes in family care by analyzing the process through which the use of postpartum care centers(sanhujoriwon) has become popularized in South Korea. In doing so, the study focuses on changes in perceptions and practices of postpartum care, with attention to the concepts of defamilization and gendered care.
First, according to earlier studies, this study reconceptualizes postpartum care as the “all care for recovery after childbirth”, then understand the concept of defamilization as the alleviation of the burden of family care. And it reviews how discussions of care have expanded from a gender perspective. And the study examines the process by which the use of postpartum care centers has become a common place for postpartum care as part of South Korea’s childbirth culture, and analyzes the outsourcing of care for mothers and newborn babies through a prism of gender. To this end, the study analyzes newspaper articles published from the 1990s to the 2020s to trace changes in public discourse surrounding postpartum care centers, and examines users’ experiences to analyze shifts in perceptions and practices of postpartum care in relation to family structures and gendered divisions of housework.
The combined analysis of newspaper articles and in-depth interview data shows that the emergence of postpartum care centers in South Korea has been closely associated with nuclearization of families and the increase in dual-earner households. Although family size has decreased, domestic labor and care work has continued to be disproportionately assigned to women, and postpartum care centers have functioned as spaces in which mothers are temporarily exempted from unpaid housework. Despite an increase of accidents related to postpartum care centers, utilization rates have continued to rise, while disparities in facility availability and costs have come to represent the stratification of care and the widening of regional inequalities. As support for postpartum care has been incorporated into pro-natal and family policies, public postpartum care centers has been heavily discussed. Nevertheless, the findings indicate that within a care system subordinated to market logic, the intrinsic value of care has been consistently overlooked.
Using micro level analysis, while the traditional practice of postpartum care as a form of health care has persisted, there is a growing tendency to avoid care by family members by reason of age hierarchy. As social structures that make home-based postpartum care impossible, a cross-generational consensus has formed around the necessity of using postpartum center services; however, the responsibility for care giving continues to be placed on women across both public and private domains. In addition, although changes in postpartum care center usage have emerged alongside strengthened consumer sovereignty and a growing preference for individualized consumption, gender role norms rooted in the male breadwinner model remain evident in parental attitudes toward child care. These findings suggest that as care becomes increasingly commodified and gendered, care inequalities may further intensify.
In conclusion, by examining social phenomenon that postpartum care center use has spread, this study identifies changes in societal perceptions of family care and reveals the intertwined processes of stratification and genderization that accompany the outsourcing of care. It argues that achieving “genuine defamilization” requires the changing gender roles in care and emphasize the need to reorganize social systems from the perspective of mainstreaming care.