Five 2030 Scenarios for the Family and Related Policy Implications

This research has been designed as the second-year project of the four-year Special Research (2011-2014) effort. The main purpose of this current project is to develop potential scenarios regarding families of the future by predicting directions of change. In order to elaborate these scenarios, the five areas of demographic environment, labor and economic environment, science and technology, political environment, and perceptions of the family were singled out as major areas affecting the outlook on the future family. Next, the Delphi technique was applied in order to identify key drivers behind future changes in the family for each respective area. Next, the trend in changes was forecasted for each area and hypotheses were crafted regarding the impact of these changes on the lives of women and their families. Caretaking, inequality, and family values were selected as the main axes of the scenarios, based on a combination of the hypotheses. Next, the three axes were juxtaposed, resulting in a total of eight scenarios from which five were selected. These five scenarios include the conflict between personal values and family life scenario, the polarization of family life scenario, the loose but intimate family scenario, the coexistence of equal society and unequal family scenario, and the maximized familial burden scenario. According to a nation-wide survey of 5,000 people regarding these five scenarios, the loose but intimate family scenario was identified as the most preferred. In order for South Korea to progress toward this scenario, this research suggests reinforcement of social security policy, evaluation of overall care policy and future directions, and refinement of laws and institutions in accordance with the strengthening perception of an individual-oriented family.