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S. Koreans spend little time with family: survey

September 15, 2015

Among Korean children aged 7-12, 56 percent said they wanted to spend more time with their parents, higher than the average of 47 percent of 12 surveyed countries, in a survey by Swedish furniture company IKEA. (Korea Times file)

Koreans are known to be family-bound, or that was the stereotype. However, Korean parents spend an average of 1.5 hours per day with their children on weekdays, a recent survey showed.

The findings are based on Swedish furniture giant IKEA’s online survey of 30,000 parents and children in 12 countries, including Korea, Japan, France, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The time Korean teenagers spend with their parents (1.5 hours) is less than half of the 12 countries’ average of 3.8 hours.

It is also the shortest time span among the surveyed countries.

On weekends, they spent 5.1 hours per day together, also less than the 7.2 hour average and the least amount of time among the surveyed countries.

Even when Korean parents and children are together, 75 percent of teenagers and 69 percent of children aged 7-12 said they watched TV.

Meanwhile, 73 percent of Korean parents wished to spend more time with their families.

This is higher than the figures for Sweden (64 percent), Germany (68 percent) and the U.K (72 percent).

Among Korean children aged 7-12, 56 percent said they wanted to spend more time with their parents, higher than the average of 47 percent.

“Teenagers in Korea, China and India in particular feel that their parents make them engage excessively in extracurricular activities and wish to spend more time with their parents _ the figure has risen from 38 percent in 2009 to 47 percent last year,” the report said.