Transformation of Family Ideology in Upper-Middle-Class Families in Urban South Korea

Abstract

processes and class processes (Fraad, Resnick, and Wolff 1989), this study analyzes the historical development of the inter-relationships between two major social institutions (that is, the family and the state). It also investigates the ways in which the structure of the upper-middle-class family and women's experience of family life have been transformed as late-industrial capitalism has developed in South Korea. The study is based on ethnographic research of 72 upper-middle-class families conducted in 1990 in Seoul, Korea. I established contacts with these families through personal networks, such as relatives and friends. Without these personal networks, this study would have been impossible due to the reluctance of the families in this social category toward any type of public examination. Throughout this article, the term, class, is used in the Weberian sense of status more than according to the Marxian conception of class. Upper-middle-class families in this study live in expensive condominium complexes that are recently established in the Kangnam (south of the Han river) area and share a variety of social status indicators, such as income and occupation of the male head of the family, ownership of family property, size of the condominium, monthly household budget, educational level of family members, and life-styles. The majority of the male heads of the families I studied are white-collar workers, such as managers or executives of private companies (46.5 per cent), entrepreneurs (25.6 per cent), professionals (13.7 per cent), high-level government officials (6.8 per cent), and other (7.4 per cent). Every family in my sample has one or more kinds of family property, such as stocks, cash savings, land, second homes and condominiums, and office buildings. Seventy-five per cent of the families live in the condominiums that are valued at more than half a million U.S. dollars. They are spacious and roomy condominiums, relative to the South Korean standard; i.e., larger than 40 pyung (1,212 m2) up to 61 pyong (1,848 m2), and have more than four bedrooms. Monthly household expenses of the families, which are primarily based on the income of male heads, is well above the average household budget of the

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