The Sad Stories of ‘Unni (big sister)’ : Labor of Young Girls in Modern Korean Families

Abstract

From the Japanese Colonial Period up until the 1970s, a large number of pictures and photographs that portrayed Korea’s children had one distinctive feature; they show a unni, which is a Korean word for big sister, looking aer the younger siblings. The images tell the story of how young girls, often called by their title unni, were deeply burdened with the responsibilities of doing household chores and taking care of other family members, enabling the very survival and growth of their family in a society that was rapidly turning into a capitalist economy. The paper analyzed eldwork data from the 1930s and found that young girls in families bore the main responsibility of taking care of their younger siblings and doing household chores, enabling their mothers to join the work force. A critical analysis of surveys conducted in the rural areas in the 1960s also revealed that such phenomenon continued well aer Korea was liberated from the colonial rule, and that families largely erased or oppressed the memory of the unni being burdened with such hard work. It was a common strategy for families to have their daughters serve the family needs, so that the saved-up time and money and the limited family resources could be concentrated on educating their sons. Such a strategy could only hold when everyone took for granted the sacrice made by the unni figure in the family. While some will reminisce their childhood with fond memories, some have had to sacrice and suer.