Korea had been traditionally influenced by the Confucian culture. In Confucian culture, filial duty is one of the most important virtues that people are supposed to pursuit. The great emphasis on filial duty played a significant role in making an extended family as a primary family form. Korea has gone through a drastic change in recent decades and that also brought a drastic change in family form in Korea. As a result of the rapid modernization in Korea, a nuclear family became the most common family form which blurred the family and relative community.
The rapid modernization of Korea brought many changes that triggered the family size to get smaller. Every modernization accompanies a lot of changes in a society. One of the significant changes is job diversity. A modernized country creates more diverse job for workers than an agricultural country. Job diversity means an individual have more chance to look at oneself as an independent agent that can what s/he wants to do out there in the world. People are more likely to focus on themselves as one individual not a member of a big family or relative community where every member in work-force usually shares the common job and wants to succeed the family occupation. As a result of this strengthened individualism, people slowly started taking it for grant that someone will move from his or her own home and live an independent life after having grown up. This separation process naturally leads to the nuclear family's prevalence.
The concept of relative community will change and fade out in near future. I lived with my grandparents when I was a baby. Although I cannot remember everything happened at that time I think the concept I have about my grandparents, aunts and uncles will have a big difference from the concept of who has never been lived with relatives if any. Taking account of the fact that the average number of offspring is extremely decreased, our future generation will surely build a more abstract concept of relative community. They will learn how they call mother's sisters and brothers only in a text book, not in the real world. Naturally, relative community will be a more psychological and abstract concept than an actual and physical concept.
Because of the huge change in human's life style, a nuclear family is becoming the most prevalent family form not only in Korea but all over the world. It changed the concept of relative community and our future generation will have different idea about community of relatives. No one can judge this is good or bad. People just always try to adapt to their changing environments and this time, a small sized family form is the best answer.
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