The purpose of this study is to examine the debt burdens, perceived capabilities, and mental health of young adults. Panel data constructed from the 2009 to 2013 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and its Transition to Adulthood (TA) supplement are used in this study. The multinomial logistic regression analysis findings showed that the amount of revolving debt was negatively associated with young adults’ mental health. On the other hand, perceived abilities in acting responsibly, in solving problems, and in managing money were positively associated with the mental health of young adults. The fixed effects regression analysis results indicate that the amounts of credit card and student loan debt from the previous period were negatively associated with an increase in the mental health continuum scores of young adults over time. A discussion of the implications of this study’s key findings for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners is included.

This paper examines the associations of having a helper for domestic work or childcare and time spent on it by couples in South Korea. We use five waves of panel survey data from the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families (KLoWF), which allows longitudinal changes within couples over time that account for potential selection effects and unobserved heterogeneity among individuals. With fixed effects, we find outsourcing is associated with a decrease in wife’s time spent on domestic work or childcare by 1 hour per week. However, the decrease is concentrated on the unemployed wife’s time, but not employed wife’s time. In addition, outsourcing is not a significant factor for husband’s time and the husband’s share of total contribution. This may be because wives are the main provider of domestic work and childcare in Korea regardless of employment status or having any helper. Due to unequal contributions between husband and wife, using outsourcing also neither alleviates the employed wife’s contribution nor changes the husband’s contribution. However, the results may be underestimated because there are more common and diverse types of outsourcing in a broad sense, such as going out for dinner, buying prepared food, and using dry cleaning services. We expect future studies to consider more broad types of outsourcing and examine how relations with the couple’s time use at home are different by type.

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The paper examines how time availability, relative monetary contribution, and gender ideology are related to a couple's contribution to domestic work in South Korea, using data from the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families. OLS regressions with fixed effects indicate that couples' hours worked were significantly associated with their own and their spouse's time spent on domestic work. The wife's relative wage was another essential determinant in the division of domestic work between wife and husband. Although the wife's gender ideology was not a significant factor for her domestic work time, a husband whose wife had more gender‐equitable attitudes was more likely to devote time to domestic work. Going beyond earlier studies, we also present new evidence for gender display: the wife's relative wage had a curvilinear relationship with the couple's time spent on domestic work. The broader implications of the main findings are also discussed.

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