Abstract

The original purpose of this research was to identify how the South Korean family has changed over the course of the rapid industrialization in South Korea that took place in the last 50 years, particularly between the 1960s and 1990s. During my research, however, I began realizing that the changes occurring in the family and in society were much more intertwined than I expected.

Under the context of South Korean industrialization, neo-familism presents an argument contrary to conventional sociological discourse about industrialization: neo-familism in South Korea developed as a reaction to the social changes of industrialization, unexpectedly reinforcing familial ties rather than disintegrating them. This concept is not restricted to the perception of family, for it extends past kinship to include the pursuit of the social mobility and status that is linked to regional and school ties. Neo-familism can also be interpreted as the consequence of the accidental pluralism that is found in the coexistence of the Confucian, instrumental, affectionate, and individualistic familisms. As a whole, neo-familism possesses a liminality that places South Koreans in a world between tradition and modernity. This is not to say that Korea is anything short of a highly-modernized country, but that tradition and modernity have come to co-exist due to the abrupt social changes caused by industrialization, and as such this liminality has not had time to resolve itself.