Gender Role Equity and Marital Satisfaction among Korean Couples

Abstract

This study examines gender role behaviors and attitudes related to marital satisfaction. Nontraditional attitudes and behaviors are expected to affect negatively marital satisfaction due to the lack of guidelines and due to the other positive alternatives to marital roles. Data, collected from a survey of 291 married couples in Seoul, Korea in 1991, largely support the hypotheses, which are fairly consistent with the results of studies of American couples. Nontraditional gender role attitudes and wife's employment are related to lower marital satisfaction. However, the housekeeper role has changed somewhat more than the male provider role, so that nontraditional tendencies, in attitudes and behaviors, with respect to the housekeeper role have been related to higher marital satisfaction. Findings of this study show that measures of actual division of household labor are better related to marital satisfaction than are measures of perceived division of household labor.

The consistent trends in marital satisfaction in Korea compared with those in the

United States suggest a future high marital instability in Korea.