Who Takes the Benefits?: The Effects of Work-Life Balance Policies on South Korean Mothers’ Employment

• In Event: 3523 - Family Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 13: Work-Family Policies

Abstract

The financial crisis in 1998 followed by industrial restructuring and labour market flexibilization had a huge impact on the South Korean society. One of the consequences is the decline of the male breadwinner model. On the other hand, the expansion of higher education in the 1990s has been transforming other social institutions in turn. With a growing number of highly educated women joining the labour market, Korea’s total fertility rates have dropped dramatically and never recovered from the world lowest level. To deal with this issue, the Korean government has developed a series of work-life balance (WLB) policies. These policies have not been so successful, however, either in protecting working women against motherhood penalties nor in encouraging them to have more children. Then, why are the WLB policies failing in Korea? To answer this question, I pay attention to the dual structure of the Korean labour market. I examine the effects of the WLB policies on married women’s employment in Korea by applying statistical methods to data obtained from the National Survey on Fertility, Family Health and Welfare in 2015. In addition, I discuss the implications of the WLB policies for social stratification in relation to the dual structure of the Korean labour market. Specific research questions are as follows. First, do the Korean WLB policies increase the odds of Korean married women being employed? Second, do the effects of the WLB policies on Korean married women’s employment differ by socio-economic status? Third, does Korean married women’s past employment status moderate the effects of WLB policies on their current employment status?

Author

• Min Young Song, University of Warwick