Unmarried Young Adult Women’s Perceptions of Filial Responsibility for Aging Parents and Related Factors: With Focus on their Family of Origin

Objectives This study investigated the factors related to the filial responsibility for aging parents perceived by unmarried young adult women, with focus on the characteristics of their family of origin. Methods Data of 1,405 unmarried young adult women aged from 19 to 39 years old were extracted from the 8th wave of the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families, and the relationship between their perceptions of filial responsibility for aging parents and their position and relationship within the family of origin, as well as their gender role attitude were analyzed using Logistic regression. Results Analytic results revealed that, first, whether they were the eldest or had a male sibling, family positions that traditionally accompanied filial responsibility, were unrelated to their perceptions of filial responsibility for aging parents, neither the frequency of shared activity with parents. Second, those who had grown up with less strict parents, and held traditional gender role attitude positively perceived the filial responsibility for aging parents. Conclusions Social norms of filial responsibility for aging parents traditionally assigned to the eldest child or son appeared to be hardly influential on how unmarried young adult women perceived their filial responsibility, whereas positive upbringing and traditional gender-role attitude were related to the positive perception of filial responsibility. These findings are expected to provide practical implications to support unmarried young adult women’s caring of aging parents, together with the government, in the upcoming super-aged society.