In the last 60 years the typical Korean family has dramatically changed its size due to a drastic drop in the national fertility rates, which plummeted from 6.2 in 1960 to 0.98 in 2018. This transformation was actively supported by population policies that promoted not only a change in behavior but also in values and cultural perceptions on childrearing and family size, mobilizing all sorts of communication media for that purpose. Families with multiple children were associated with negative connotations such as backwardness, poverty, unhappiness, and lack of education or parental responsibility, making of it an abnormal, and later on invisible, reality. Since the mid-2000s however, following the rising concern of government officials for the decreasing fertility rates and coinciding with the enactment of childbirth encouragement policies, there has been an increasing visibility of multichild families (two or more children) in local media and popular culture. This paper examines the multi-child family representations involved in these reactions to population policy by identifying patterns of representation and critically analyzing their cultural meaning. Specifically, it focuses on how these representations confirm, contradict, contrast, or interact in complex ways with existing discourses on family and parenting and with new policies.

在过去的 60 年里，由于国民生育率的急剧下降，韩国典型家庭的规模发生了巨大变化，从 1960 年的 6.2 下降到 2018 年的 0.98。这种转变得到了人口政策的积极支持，不仅促进了变化在行为方面，而且在育儿和家庭规模方面的价值观和文化观念方面，为此目的动员各种传播媒体。多子女家庭与落后、贫困、不幸福、缺乏教育或父母责任等负面含义相关联，使其成为一种不正常的、后来成为无形的现实。然而，自 2000 年代中期以来，随着政府官员对生育率下降的日益关注以及适逢生育鼓励政策的颁布，多子女家庭（两个或更多孩子）在当地媒体和流行文化中的知名度越来越高。本文通过识别代表模式并批判性分析其文化含义，研究了这些对人口政策的反应所涉及的多子女家庭代表。具体而言，它侧重于这些表述如何以复杂的方式与有关家庭和养育子女的现有话语以及新政策进行确认、矛盾、对比或相互作用。