한국아동패널 2009

Abstract

The Panel Study on Korean Children is a national-level panel study of newborn babies designed to collect on the development of children and the factors influential to their development. It began in 2008 and will continue to 2020 (data being collected every year until 2015, then separately in 2017 and 2020). Of the population of babies born in medical institutions nationwide in 2008, the survey sample comprises 2,078 newborns delivered by obstetricians nationwide from April to July 2008. Based upon the first year of data from the Panel Study on Korean Children (hereafter the PSKC), pregnancy and birth data are regarded as the start of the life-cycle; additionally, the characteristics of child development and child-rearing are also the subject of analysis in the PSKC 2009 study. The main results of pregnancy and birth information presented in the first year data analysis of the PSKC are as follows. First, it is estimated that 4.1% of the newborns’ population in 2008 were conceived by medical operation, indicating that unemployed mothers go through auxiliary reproduction operations, such as invitro-fertilization or test-tube procedures, three times higher than the rate for employed mothers. It is assumed that it is difficult for employed mothers to invest more effort and time undergoing this medical procedure. Second, caesarian sections take up 44.6%, which is a high figure. If it turns out to be led by medical institutions through precise root cause analysis, it is crucial to establish the institutional grid inducing natural childbirth and promotion in order to prevent unnecessary caesarians, such as educating the newly-weds and women of reproductive age as to the merits and advantages of natural childbirth, and spreading such programs for public education. Third, the average period of breast-fed babies born in 2008 is as short as two months by and large in the case of the cessation of breast-feeding. The second biggest obstacle elicited by working mothers (the employees and students) is that they suffer from the demands of life at work and school in the daytime (37.7% ). Fourth, the research data reveals the difference between the number of children planned and its ideal number. Even though 2.2% respondents believed that 1 child was the ideal number, 25.3% responded that the number planned was 1. This can be interpreted as an indication that practical difficulties hinder childbirth in spite of the stated intentions to have more children. As to the reason not to have more children, 33.8% said that they ‘already fulfilled the number of children they had planned to have’ and 30.5% attributed the reason for not having more children to future educational expenditure. That is, the burden of children’s educational expenditure is one of the major factors hampering childbirth; therefore it is imperative to create policy proposals aimed at alleviating this burden.