A Study on Higher Education for Women in North Korea and the Integration Tasks of North and South Korea

Abstract

In North Korea, female laborers are being marginalized in the heavy industriesand military-centric political and economic policies. As the national patriarchal system works as the power hierarchy even in the family, women are experiencing the limitations of their roles as an assistant. With the deepening economic crisis in North Korea, women are forced to take more responsibility in the family livelihood through private economic activities and bombarded with more role burdens. The structure and current state of higher education in North Korea examined from a feminist perspective in the study involved the common denominators between North and South Korea such as the colonial experiences, division, war, and regime competition and also heterogeneous quality due to differences in the political and economic system and cultural creation between them. That is, both North and South Korea have witnessed the succession of social exclusion not to be ignored in women"s career ambitions and moves including labor as well as higher education for women. There is a need to investigate what implications of the situation would have for North Korea and the integration of North and South Korea and what kind of integration tasks it would demand from higher education. The study analyzed the major issues and structures of higher education in North Korea from a feminist perspective with a focus on the content of science- and technology-based educational reform and looked into the new opportunities and limiting situations offered to women, thus promoting an understanding of the multi-layered framework of exclusion inherent in North Korea.