Understanding Employment Policies for Older Workers in South Korea (A Biographical Narrative Research)

Abstract

This thesis presents the voices of older workers in South Korea through their life stories and experiences in order to interpret how employed older people understand South Korea’s policies and programs for employing older people. The policy and practice context of the employment of older people is presented to help readers understand in greater depth their life stories and experiences and to construct their perspectives on employment policies and practices for older people in the social, political, economic, historical and cultural context of South Korea. In order to interpret in depth the understanding employment amongst a sample of twelve employed older Koreans, a biographical method was adopted which generated experiences of employment within each person’s life story. These were analyzed using biographical narrative analysis with Schutze’s three steps. Research findings are as follows: 1. Eligible for bigger grants or more benefits? 2. Professionalism through supportive equipment. 3. Participation in policy development. 4. Gratitude for the policy. 5. ‘Dragons coming out of small ponds are ended’. In the discussion of the results, society should develop not only suitable conditions for older people to work in, but also ways of giving older people the chance to improve their capacity to compete in the labor market in order to increase the employment rate of older workers. It is recommended that further research should listen to the stories of unemployed older people about age discrimination in the labor market. The limited time and the declared research intention for the present study to focus on employed older people made this impossible here.