Human relationships are explained in terms of power dynamics, even if it concerns an intimate family, such as a loving couple or a devoted parent–child equation. Balance of power facilitates strong and successful relationships (Sprecher & Felmlee, 1997). As power imbalances damage relationships, establishing healthy and successful marital relationships necessitates that power is not balanced to the detriment of either partner (Knudson-Martin, 2013). In the case of Korean heterosexual love couples, however, the balance of power is not limited to their relationship alone (Sprecher & Felmlee, 1997); it encompasses their relationship with their respective parents and parents-in-law, as well as the relationship between the two sides of parents. Modern-day couples are pressed for the time and resources needed to care for their parents, and, therefore, their sexually equal relationship helps to keep intergenerational relations equitable (Choi et al., 2019; Sprecher & Felmlee, 1997). In other words, because one of their parents is inequitable, it is possible to assess the balance of power in a marital relationship by observing whether heterosexual love couples have a balanced or unbalanced relationship. It is necessary to closely examine the absolute and relative levels of the relationships with parents and parents-in-law and how differently these intergenerational relation characteristics are associated with marital relationships.

Previously, the balance of power in intergenerational relations, reflected by both parents, was classified and judged as patrilineality, matrilineality, and bilateral. Patrilineality was the traditional Korean family system in which family power was passed down from men to men—to fathers, husbands, and sons (Han & Yoon, 2004). It was common for such families to maintain a stronger bond with the husband's parents than those of the wife. In contrast, matrilineal kinship is centered on the women—the mother, wife, and daughter. Recently, matrilineality has gained popularity among Korean families (Eun, 2006). The bilateral system, however, does not adhere to lineage; inheritance and relationship are possible in both the mother’s and father’s lines. In this system, individual families are not required to have a balanced relationship with both families (Choi, 2016; Kim et al., 2015). They may lean to one side or alter their preferences depending on the content, direction, and depth of the relationship. Therefore, this must be thoroughly investigated.

Bengtson's (2001) concept of intergenerational solidarity has been used to investigate intergenerational relations in modern society. Bengtson (2001) divided intergenerational solidarity into six subdomains (i.e., affectual, associational, consensual, functional, normative, and structural). According to Bengtson and Allen (2009), even if married children reside separately from their parents, their affectionate, associational, and functional intergenerational relations are mutually beneficial. An affectionate relationship can be defined as an intimate emotional exchange. Associational relationships indicate that parents and children frequently communicate with each other in person or through phone or text messages, even if they do not reside together (Choi & Choi, 2012; Yoo & Choi, 2019). Functional relationships can be defined as those involving financial support or caregiving. This study intends to follow the concept and scale of Bengtson's affectionate, associational, and functional intergenerational relations. These three aspects of intergenerational relations were included as independent variables in the analysis model of this study. However, Bengtson's concept of intergenerational solidarity, which was developed in Western countries' cultural context, is limited to the parent–child relationship and excludes the relationship with parents-in-law (Choi et al., 2019). As seen in several East Asian countries, gender and power imbalances can be severe when a couple maintains close relationships with both their own parents and their in-laws (Jeon & Yoo, 2017). The scope of the intergenerational relationship is, therefore, extended by including parents-in-law in this study.

In the traditional Korean patriarchal system, family generations are linked from father to son (Eun, 2007; Yoo, 2020). As a mother, daughter, wife, and daughter-in-law, a woman was in an unequal position. The severity of gender difference is revealed by proverbs that state that the daughter-in-law must spend three years with ear leeches, three years blind, and three years dumb in her married life, whereas the son-in-law is treated like a hundred-year guest (NAVER Dictionary, 2022). After marriage, a woman devoted herself to caring for her parents-in-law and her relationship with her own parents grew increasingly distant. Contrastingly, men continued to maintain a close relationship with their parents—and a superficial relationship with their parents-in-law (Kim et al., 2015). Such relationship imbalances have often led to marital conflicts, and in some cases, divorce (Jeon, 2020).

With the rapid modernization of the Korean society, the exclusive emphasis on patrilineality has weakened (Chang & Song, 2010). It is now common for married children to maintain independent households regardless of gender and birth order—previously, per social norms, the eldest son and his wife were expected to support his parents. Moreover, claims abound that contrary to tradition, bilateralization or matrilineality is being promoted in order to benefit from a close relationship with the wife’s parents during the child-rearing period (Choi & Min, 2015). However, from the perspective of the overall life process, or the life of the middle-aged in Korea, patrilineality still appears influential (Choi, 2016). Several studies have reported that intergenerational relations are now more equitable than they were previously (Choi et al., 2019; Yoo & Choi, 2019). However, academic interest in how diverse and complex relations with both sides of parents influence marital relations, and how they differ by gender, is insufficient (Choi et al., 2019; Kim et al., 2015). Therefore, this study examines the associations between adult children’s relationships with their parents and parents-in-law and their marital closeness.

Although there are subtle differences between different cultural backgrounds, it has been commonly argued in many countries that gender plays an important role in intergenerational relations and marital relationships. Barnett et al. (2010) analyzed the relationship between generations and genders in the United States with a path model and showed that giving and receiving care was more frequent with married daughters than married sons. Johnston-Ataata (2019) evaluated the partner relationships of eight Tongan-European Australian intercultural couples in depth and found that although they wanted to form a close relationship with both parents and parents-in-law, they had a hard time to find a balance due to the collision of values such as culture and gender, which affected their partner relationships. Many studies have commonly reported that Chinese couples are living close to husband’s parents more often in rural areas where Confucian beliefs remain (Gruijters & Ermisch, 2019). However, in Hong Kong, where Western and Eastern cultures coexist, sons frequently have an obligatory and close relationship with their parents, whereas daughters are more often emotionally close to their parents even if they are less financially supportive or live with their parents less (Peng et al., 2022).

Numerous studies have reported that intergenerational relationship is closely linked to marital closeness, and that this link varies by gender in Korea (Choi et al., 2019; Jeon & Yoo, 2017; Jeon, 2020). Adults who receive parental support in any area, such as emotional and physical care or financial support, are usually more satisfied with their marriage because they have more resources (Jeon & Yoo, 2017). However, they may also be subjected to subordination or interference by their parents, which may have a negative impact on their marital closeness (Jeon, 2020). In terms of emotions, it is believed that if the relationship with the parents is too close and the parents' interference is severe, the child-in-law’s satisfaction decreases (Jeon & Kim, 2012). A child’s burden increases upon providing instrumental or functional support to their parents, and this may sometimes lead to reading the spouse's mind (Jeon & Kim, 2012). Marital closeness may diminish when a spouse prefers to have a relationship with his/her own parents rather than unilaterally supporting her/his parents-in-law (Jeon, 2020; Jeon & Yoo, 2017).

The conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law has been a gender, family, and social issue (Jeon & Kim, 2012). However, with rapidly changing cultural norms in Korea, interest in the relationship between father-in-law and son-in-law has recently grown (Jeon & Jeon, 2014). Women and men may experience varying levels of marital closeness because of their spouse’s relationships with their respective parents (Jeon & Yoo, 2017). However, studies analyzing marital closeness from children's perspective while simultaneously considering the relationship with both sides of parents in one model are uncommon in Korea (Choi et al., 2019).

Socio-demographic characteristics such as age, education, household income, the presence of grandchildren, and the survival of parents/parents-in-law may also be closely related to intergenerational relationships and marital closeness (Choi & Nam, 2016). The literature has documented that those who are older, less educated, have less household income (Yoo, 2017), and possess a traditional attitude toward gender and family tend to maintain closer relationships with their husbands’ parents, resulting in lower marital closeness (Choi et al., 2019). However, those with a young child may occasionally receive more support from their parents and, therefore, become more affectionate toward them (Choi & Choi, 2012; Lee & Bauer, 2013); resultantly, this has a positive impact on marital relationships (Jeon & Kim, 2012). In contrast, when one of the parents or parents-in-law dies, adult children are likely to provide affectionate and functional support to the surviving parent (Choi & Bin, 2016; Yoo, 2020). The intensive support for one parent influences marital relationships (Jeon & Jeon, 2012) and may be positively linked to the marital closeness of the person or spouse. However, this imbalance may also create a burden of support, leading to stress (Jeon, 2020; Jeon & Jeon, 2014). Therefore, we use the adult child’s age, education, household income, the presence of grandchildren, and the widowhood of each set of parents as control variables.

This study has four advantages compared to previous studies on these topics. First, the flow of the relationship is two-way—that is, it can be given and received. Previous studies on intergenerational relations have focused on one-way relationships in which parents support their children, and conversely, children support their parents (Choi & Nam, 2016). However, we include multiple dimensions of intergenerational relationships, including affectionate, associational, and functional ties because each dimension may be differently linked to adult children's marriage (Jeon, 2020; Knudson-Martin, 2013). Therefore, we comprehensively measure the bi-directionality and diversity of intergenerational relations.

Second, most earlier studies conducted in Western countries did not highlight spouses’ relationships with their parents (Kim et al., 2015). However, decisions in a marriage are usually made as a couple, and the interaction quality toward one side of the parents may affect the interaction with the other side (Sprecher & Felmlee, 1997). In this regard, this study broadens our understanding of the relationship between parents and parents-in-law.

Third, the relationship between both sides of parents on marital closeness can vary not only with their absolute level but also with their relative level. In this study, the absolute aspect in this study refers to the participants' levels of affectionate, associational, and functional relationships with their own parents and their parents-in-law. The relative relationships refer to comparisons between parents and parents-in-law and were categorized into greater solidarity with one’s own parents, greater solidarity with parents-in-law, and similar solidarity with both sides in terms of the three dimensions. For instance, even if the level of absolute relationship with parents is above average, if the relationship with the parents-in-law is overwhelmingly strong, his/her marital closeness may be lowered (Jeon & Jeon, 2012; Sprecher & Felmlee, 1997). It may not be detrimental to a couple’s marital closeness if relationships with both sides of parents are balanced, even if the absolute level is below the average level (Jeon, 2020; Sprecher & Felmlee, 1997).

Lastly, marital closeness according to various intergenerational relations may vary by gender, but previous studies did not classify the analysis targets as women or gender (Choi & Bin, 2016; Yoo, 2017). We perform the multiple regression analysis with women and men separately and compared the gender-based result differences.

The specific research questions of this study are as follows.

• Question 1. What are the absolute and relative characteristics of affectual, associational, and functional relationships with parents and parents-in-law among married Korean women and men?
• Question 2. Are the absolute aspects of affectual, associational, and functional relationships with parents and parents-in-law associated with marital closeness? Do these associations differ according to gender?
• Question 3. Are the relative aspects of affectual, associational, and functional relationships with parents and parents-in-law associated with marital closeness? Do these associations differ according to gender?

This study employed data from the 2019 Seoul Family Report Survey (Chin, Lee, Kwon, Kim, & Oh, 2019): an annual online survey conducted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government to assess the overall family life of Seoul residents. The survey period was from May 13, 2019 to May 19, 2019. The survey invitation email was sent to the online panel members of the survey company, and panel members who voluntarily wanted to participate in the survey responded. Quota sampling based on gender, age, and residential areas in Seoul was used. When respondents participate in the survey up to the number of genders and age groups assigned to each region, it is designed to stop of survey automatically for people who belong to the region can no longer respond. The data collection process was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB). This survey asked both men and women about the relationship as well as exchanges of support between married adults and their parents and parents-in-law—an advantage over other national surveys. Seoul is a metropolis inhabited by approximately 19% of Koreans and represents Korea as the capital of Korea, leading the development of other cities.

In this study, we analyzed a subset of the 2019 Seoul Family Report Survey. Among the 1,600 respondents, we selected married adults who had at least one surviving parent and one parent-in-law, did not reside with any parent. We did not include those who resided with parents or parents-in-law because this group would not have sufficient variations in associational and functional intergenerational ties. For example, co-residence with parents or parents-in-law would involve face-to-face interactions on a daily basis and active exchanges of instrumental support, such as housework and caregiving. Our sample included 562 married Koreans, with 269 women (47.9%) and 293 men (52.1%).

Table 1 presents participants’ characteristics. In terms of age, 40s (39.9%) were included in the analysis, followed by 30s (29.2%), 50s (24.4%), 60s (3.7%), and 20s (2.9%). The average age of the subjects was 43.8. Their most common educational level was university graduate or lower (62.8%), followed by junior college graduate or lower (14.4%), graduate school or higher (13.0%), and high school graduate or lower (9.8%). The average household income was 6.45 on a 1–11 scale, which is between 5 million won or more and 6 million won or more. The average marital closeness was 4.4 on a 1–6 scale, which was slightly higher than the median. More than four-fifths of the subjects (82.6%) had at least one child. More than half the participants’ parents (66.0%) were alive, followed by participants survived solely by their mothers (28.3%) and those survived solely by their fathers (5.7%). Similarly, more than half of the participants’ parents (58.4%) were alive, followed by only mothers alive (35.1%) and a few cases (6.6%) of only the fathers alive.

Two items adapted from the Perceived Parent-Child Affection Scale were used to measure marital closeness (Roberts & Bengtson, 1993). The items included: “Taking everything into consideration, how close do you feel is the relationship between you and your partner at this point in your life?” and “Overall, how well do you and your partner get along together at this point in your life?” A 6-point Likert scale ranging from “not at all (1)” to “very much (6)” was used. A higher score represents a higher level of closeness with the spouse. The average score of the two items was used, and Cronbach’s alpha was .94.

Respondents (married adult children) were asked about their own parents and parents-in-law for all intergenerational relationship items.

Age was analyzed using five dummy variables: 20s, 30s, 40s (reference group), 50s, and 60s. Education level was included using four dummy variables: high school graduate or lower, junior college graduate or lower, university graduate or lower (reference group), and graduate school or higher. Household income—that is, the total monthly income of all the family members residing together—was a continuous variable measured in units of one million Korean won, from “less than 1 million won (1)” to “10 million won or more (11).” Having a child was coded as 1 (yes) or 0 (no). Whether parents/parents-in-law alive, was analyzed using “both father and mother alive,” “only father alive,” and “only mother alive (a reference group).”

Using STATA 16.1, we conducted multiple linear regression analyses for women and men separately to answer research questions 2 and 3. The dependent variable was the level of marital closeness, and the independent variables were affectionate, associational, and functional characteristics of absolute and relative intergenerational relationships, respectively. We confirmed that multicollinearity was not an issue because all correction coefficients among the study variables were under .66 (See in Appendix Table 1) factors (VIFs) were lower than 3.39 for regression models.

Table 2 presents the descriptive statistics of absolute and relative relationships with parents and parents-in-law. On a 1–6 scale, the average relationship with own parents was 4.36, whereas the relationship with parents-in-law was 3.7. Numerous participants felt closer to their own parents than to their parents-in-law (62.8%) or reported similar levels of closeness with both sides of parents (25.4%), but some reported that they were closer to parents-in-law (11.7%). On a 1–5 scale, the average frequency of meeting with own parents and parents-in-law was 2.9 and 2.6, respectively, indicating that meetings occurred more than once or twice a year but less than once or twice a month. A little less than half (46.1%) reported meeting both sides of parents equally; 35.8% reported meeting more often with their own parents; and 18.2% met more often with their parents-in-law. On a 1–5 scale, the average frequency of contact via phone was 3.8 with own parents—quite close to 4, which meant once or twice a week; it was higher than the 2.7 for parents-in-law, which indicated more than once or twice a year but less than once or twice a month. Two-thirds of the participants (65.7%) contacted their parents more often via phone, and only 3.9% contacted their parents-in-law through phone—one-third maintained similar levels of phone contact with both sides of parents. On a 1–5 scale, the average frequency of text contact with own parents was almost 3 (2.97), corresponding to once or twice a month, and that with parents-in-law was almost 2 (2.2), corresponding to once or twice a year. The maximum number of respondents (51.6%) maintained similar text contact with both sides of parents (51.6%); 43.2% contacted their own parents more often—significantly more than the 5.2% that contacted their parents-in-law more often.

The proportion of participants providing financial assistance to their own parents (49.1%) was identical to those not providing it (50.9%). Those who did not provide financial assistance to parents-in-law (55.5%) numbered slightly more than those who did provide it (44.5%). In the case of providing financial assistance, “none” was the highest at 39.3%, followed by “both” (32.9%), “only to own parents” (16.2%), and “only to parents of spouse” (11.6%). This means that approximately 70% provided similar levels of financial assistance to both sides of parents. The proportion of participants who did not provide housework help and care to their own parents and parents-in-law was 80.4% and 85.1%, respectively. Regarding housework help and care, “none” (73.3%) was the most common response, followed by “only to own parents” (11.7%), “both” (7.8%), and “only to parents of spouse” (7.1%). The proportion of participants who received financial assistance from their own parents (12.5%) was higher than those who received it from their parents-in-law (7.7%). In the case of receiving financial assistance, most of the participants responded “none” (82.9%), followed by “only from own parents” (9.4%), “only from parents of spouse” (4.6%), and “both” (3.0%). Similar to receiving financial assistance from parents, the proportion of participants who received housework help and care from their own parents (12.6%) was higher than those who received it from their parents-in-law (10.1%). In the field of housework help and care, four-fifth of the total respondents responded “nobody” (79.9%), followed by “only from own parents” (10.0%), “only from parents of spouse” (7.5), and “both” (2.7%).

Table 3 shows the results of the multiple linear regression analysis of the absolute intergenerational relationships after controlling for the control variables. The independent and control variables explained about 36% of the variance in women’s marital closeness and about 33.7% in men’s marital closeness. For women, their martial intimacy improved as the relationship with their in-laws improved (β = .43, p < .001). When providing housework help and care such as chores and nursing care to their own parents, their marital closeness was significantly greater than when they did not (β = .19, p < .01). Similarly, providing financial assistance to own parents was associated with lower levels of marital closeness (β = -.12, p < .05). For men, as in Model 1 for women, the closer the relationship with the parents-in-law, the greater their marital closeness (β = .42, p < .001). When receiving housework help and care from their own parents, their marital closeness was significantly lower than when they did not (β = -.14, p < .05). It is interesting to note that in the case of women, providing support to parents was related to marital closeness, whereas in the case of men, receiving support from parents was related to marital closeness.

Table 4 shows the results of the multiple linear regression analysis of the relative intergenerational relationships after controlling for the control variables. The independent and control variables together explained about 26.2% of the variance in women’s marital closeness and about 22.2% in men’s marital closeness.

For women, marital closeness was greater when relationships with both sides of parents were similar (β = .20, p < .01) or when the relationship with parents-in-law was better (β = .16, p < .05) than that with own parents. The level of marital closeness was lower when the frequency of text contact with parents-in-law was higher than with own parents (β = -.13, p < .05). Similarly, marital closeness was greater when providing financial support to both parents (β = .25, p < .05) or to neither sides of parents (β = .31, p < .01), rather than only to the wife’s parents. However, when providing housework help and care to the husband’s parents, the relationship with the husband was less intimate than when only providing it to the wife’s parents (β = -.24, p < .01). The relative characteristics of receiving financial assistance or housework help and care were not significantly associated with marital closeness for women.

Men’s level of marital closeness was higher when they received no financial assistance than when they received financial assistance from their own parents (β = .16, p < .05). For men, the comparison of providing financial assistance or housework help and care to both parents was not significantly associated with marital closeness. In summary, the comparison of contact and support exchanges for both sides of parents had stronger associations with marital closeness for women than for men.