The impact of unmarried people’s values and perceptions on marriage and fertility intentions: Focusing on latent classes of gender role attitudes and subjective economic uncertainty

South Korea's long-standing low fertility rate has been widely acknowledged as a significant issue. The purpose of this study is to conduct a more refined analysis of values and perceptions, which have been recently pointed out as causes of low fertility, by identifying the latent types of gender role values among unmarried individuals and exploring the relationship between these gender role value latent groups and perceived uncertainties in relation to intentions to marry and have children. We conducted a latent class analysis and logistic regression on data from 5,003 unmarried people from the 2021 National Family and Fertility Survey. The latent class analysis categorized unmarried individuals into three groups based on their gender role attitudes: egalitarian value group (71.8%), traditional value group (19.8%), and transitional value group (8.4%). Using the egalitarian value group as the reference group, a multinomial logistic regression is conducted to examine the factors influencing the classification of the remaining two groups. The results indicate that gender, age, educational level, employment type, and equivalized total income were significant. Logistic regression analysis showed that the egalitarian value group had lower intentions to marry and have children compared to the traditional value group. Additionally, individuals with more positive future prospects, i.e., lower uncertainty about the future, had higher marriage and fertility intentions. Based on these findings, the study suggests promoting a culture of gender equality in both public and private spheres and increasing housing and income stability to reduce uncertainty.