(123rf)
(123rf)

Women were more likely to want to get pregnant the higher their share of household income was, and the greater proportion of housework their partners did, according to a study published in the journal of the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education.

The study used the data on 3,314 women in double-income marriages from the Korean Women's Development Institute's annual survey on women aged between 19 and 64 from 2012 to 2022.

Researchers analyzed which factors correlated with their willingness to have children — or more children, if they already had them — though they noted the research was limited in how well it could identify causes.

Factors included personal factors such as age and the number of children, financial and gender equality factors.

The gender equality factor was calculated by the ratio of how much the woman said the husband partakes in household chores, and the financial negotiating power of the wife, to determine how equally they split their financial and household burdens. The financial negotiating power was determined by dividing the wife's hourly wage to the couple's combined hourly wage.

Among the couples willing to have children, the wife's average share of financial earnings was 44 percent — compared to the 38.1 percent among couples not willing to have children.

But this trend peaked when women's financial contribution was around 47-48 percent of the household income. Higher than that, and their willingness to have children tended to decrease.

On the other hand, there was no limit found in how the husband's contribution to housework increased his wife's willingness to have children.

The study showed that cultural attitudes, such as perceptions of individualism, gender roles, and family, had a much lower impact. This suggests that these personal belief is not a dominant factor in deciding to have kids.

How family-friendly a woman's employer had a big correlation: Over 73 percent of women willing to have children said their company had a family-friendly system, compared to only 35.3 percent from those who said they were unwilling.

Despite the huge gap, the study found that the direct impact of these policies was low. But it found prediction models improved with its inclusion, suggesting the policies interacted with other factors.

The women's age and the number of children that they already have were both significant factors.

Willingness to have children declined steadily until women reached about 41 years old, after which it stabilized at a very low level. Women were also more likely to be willing to have children the fewer they already had, with willingness very uncommon among those who already had 2 or more children.

The study noted that it did not include interactions between variables. For example, couples with two or more children may also have more unequal distributions of income and housework between the mother and father. It also noted that the lack of data on women who were unmarried limited the study's findings.


minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com