계자(繼子)입양

Stepchild Adoption

Stepchild adoption refers an adoption of the child by the spouse of the parent. There is no statistics on the magnitude of stepchild adoption in South Korea, while it is said to be the largest type of adoption in many other jurisdictions. Stepchild adoption has not attracted much interest in South Korea except for the issue how the principle of joint adoption should be applied for the stepchild adoption. However, it is subject to more stringent requirement and has different effect in Germany, France and U.K., premised that it is suspicious in terms of the best interest of the child. Japanese law also allows only simple adoption and not full adop- tion for stepchild even though the reason behind this distinction is somewhat technical. U.S. law appears to be generous to the stepchild adop- tion, although this is exceptional in view of comparative law. Stepchild adoption, especially stepchild full adoption should be subject to more strin- gent requirement. The stability of the marriage and the seriousness of the intent to adopt should be examined more thoroughly even in stepchild simple adoption. The dissolution of the stepchild simple adoption should be subject to more relaxed requirement.