Is the exchange of support with parents-in-laws and with pro-parents fair?

The purpose of this study was to investigate the reciprocity of intergenerational support exchanges and its characteristics which married women feel in the intergenerational relationship with their own parents and parents-in-law. For the purpose, we investigated the reciprocity of intergenerational support exchanges on 327 married women with children attending kindergartens in Chungcheongnam-Do using a structured questionnaire. To verify the difference between groups, we conducted t-test, one-way ANOVA, and paired t-test using SPSS 21.0. The main results were as follows: 1) In the relationship with parents-in-law, the subjects felt that they were giving more total, instrumental, economic, and information support to their parents-in-law than they were receiving from their parents-in-law; 2) On the contrary, the subjects felt that they were receiving more total, emotional, and informational support from their pro-parents than they were giving to their pro-parents were; 3) The subjects showed matrilinealization or bilateralization that they received more emotional, instrumental, economic, informational, and total support from their pro-parents than form their parents-in-law, and they gave more emotional, instrumental, informational, and total support to their pro-parents than to their parents-in-law. Finally, based on the research results, we proposed some suggestions to resolve family problems and intergenerational conflicts in the future.