Work-Family Balance Issues and Policies in Korea: Towards an Egalitarian Regime?

Abstract

Work-family balance has become a key issue since the late 1980s in Korea as a result of women’s increasing participation in the labour market. There have been some cultural shifts in relation to gender roles in combination with economic and political changes. In particular, the traditional idea of ‘the man as head of the family’ has recently been challenged, leading to the 2008 reform of family law (Kim 2008). In spite of these recent changes, the notion that the gendered division of labour in the Korean family has shifted from a traditional to an egalitarian model is highly questionable. To explore this, the chapter asks to what extent recent policy changes have influenced women’s experiences in reconciling paid and unpaid work in practice. It discusses women’s views on their responsibility for unpaid care work, including childcare and eldercare, and on the effectiveness of work-family balance policies. Gender imbalance in unpaid care work is not peculiar to Korean society, as it exists in the most egalitarian countries in Europe such as the Scandinavian countries. However, Korean women may encounter particular difficulties because of their special responsibilities for their parents-in-law embedded in the Confucian value system. Therefore, this chapter examines the recent changes in work-family balance policies in Korea, and it argues that in order to make the policies effective there must be cultural shifts in relation to gender roles.