Korean Females Face a Forced Choice: Job or Children

by Lee Su-jo'ng

"My mother went out to work on the farm right after giving birth to me," said a member of Korea's National Assembly in a debate on giving working females longer paid vacations right before and after childbirth. Though his comment is kind of extreme, it shows the Korean idea, supported especially by conservative politicians and employers, that childcare is purely individual women's responsibility. It is difficult for Korean females to have a career because they are forced to take all the responsibility for childcare.

Korean females face a lot more difficulties in finding a job and keeping it than males as most employers assume that they will become irresponsible for their duty because of marriage and childcare. There have been many reports that Korean females are often asked in their job interview, "When will you get married?" and "Will you continue to work after marriage or childbirth?" and the result of the interview can turn out disappointing if the interviewers don't like their answers to those questions even when they have the same as or better qualifications than their male counterparts. Even if they succeed after several attempts, many of them are contract or temporary workers. An official report shows that 60.7% of employed females are temporary or daily workers while 64.4% of employed males are regular workers, which means females' job security is certainly lower. Also, even those females who have got a regular job are mostly forced to change to contract workers after marriage so that their companies can easily fire them by not renewing their contract. Therefore, Korean females are forced to quit their job much sooner and transfer to another workplace much more frequently than males. According to a statistical research by Korea's Ministry of Labor, the average period of females' continuous service was only 63.3% of that of males and the frequency of their transference to another workplace was as high as 137.3% of that of males, as of the year 1999. With these higher barriers before them, Korean females can't help struggling much harder to have a career than males.

So, the Korean government is sitting idle? Of course not, it has already made some policies to protect working women's right and their children, its future citizens, but many of the policies are not working. The nation's maternity law was revised in November, 2001 to include extended childcare leave term and improved public childcare system. The term of childcare leave is extended from 60 days to 90 days, but it is not practically helping working females. Labor Ministry's research says that 134 females requested leave of absence for childbirth and childcare in January, 2002, which is only 2.2% of what the Ministry had expected. Females sure need enough rest right before and after childbirth, but it is not easy for them to take a longer break due to fear of losing their job especially if they are not regular workers. In addition, companies reportedly try to employ fewer females in the first place to avoid giving many paid vacations and managing temps filling in for them. As for public childcare, authorities are thought to have taken just temporary expedients. In March, 2002 three of Korea's NGOs criticized, "The government has invested so little that parents are still charged with heavy financial burdens," saying that more than 90% of childcare centers in Korea are private. Moreover, the government is blamed for its new system that mass-produces "unqualified" childcare teachers trained for just 3 to 6 months. The defects with the two policies- childcare leave and public childcare are threatening the country's children's good growth as well as females' right to work.

Korean females can be emancipated from childcare to work for the society and themselves if the two policies really work. Jang, Jiyoun at Korean Labor Research Institute says that if more and more males request childcare leave, since they also have the right to take it as a father, employers will become convinced that childcare leave costs them whether they employ men or women and we will be able to get the system settled in Korea. Also, gender equality education which is beginning among Korean public servants is expected to gradually change the old idea of fixed gender role that only women are responsible for childcare. There are increasing efforts to get ourselves and others to realize the non-controversial fact that both a father and a mother are the parents of their children.

As in most other parts in the world, Korean females' status has been gradually improving in many sectors. As discussed above, however, their status improvement on the job is so slow with the government's ineffective policies still holding only them responsible for childcare. Along with individual people's and institutes' efforts, Korean authorities are being required to take more substantial measures for childcare, which is not only individual females' duty, but also fathers' and their country's.