Factors that Affect Women's Intentions to Have Additional Children: The Role of the state, Market, and Family.

This study examines married women's intentions to have additional children and found that the social sharing of childcare was not a significant factor. The data used for this analysis was the 2009 National Survey of Marriage and Fertility (NSMF), collected through interviews conducted between June 1 and July 17, 2009. Although previous studies have reported a close relationship between social childcare sharing and the fertility rate, this does not seem to be applicable to Korea due to its low degree of social sharing of childcare. Grandparental childcare sharing was also found to be insufficient in influencing additional fertility decisions. On the other hand, gender division of childcare was significantly related to family planning; the possibility of having additional children increased proportionally with the hours that both the father and mother put into childcare. In addition, variables reflecting the unique features of Korean society were significantly related to women's additional childbirth plans; this indicates that the problem of low fertility in Korea cannot be resolved by solely targeting either social support or gender division of childcare alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]