이혼 후의 친권행사자 및 양육권자의 결정에 관한 실태조사연구: 부산지방법원 가정지원의 경우를 중심으로

A Statistical Survey on Determination of Custodian Cases after Divorce in the Busan District Court

More than 145 thousand couples have divorced in Korea in the year of 2002. About 122 thousand couples, i.e. 83.8% of them left each other through agreements in front of judges, and the rest through law suit. In fact, about a half of the couples who go to the court for divorce suit, agree divorce in the mediation process before action. That means about 22 thousand peoples finish their marriage angrily. In this situation, we have to worry about their children, are those parents think over their children's happiness? In this point of view, we surveyed how people are considering their children when they are on the divorce process. For the convenience of survey, we limited the materials to the files of the Busan District Court of three years from the year of 1999 to 2001. They file 4,183 suits in the year of 2001 in the Busan District Court. That is about 8.4% of whole country's cases. We picked 541 cases freely with the kind help of the Court authority. We have found that only 19.4% of divorced couples considers about the future of their children. The number of unconsidered children is up to 156 from 105 cases. In other cases, determination of custodian and the person who exercise parental power be done by the court. But in those cases joint custody was not found. We found that in almost all the cases father or mother was determined as custodian and the person who exercise parental authority. As a conclusion, we have become to understand that still left old fashioned tradition. In some cases it is found that parents prefer sons than daughters. We think that much more effort is needed to make a real-equal and welfare country. In that country our children would be grown up to be happy persons.