South Korean women forced to choose: give up either your job or having children

Posted on : 2017-06-02 19:11 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Data show that it is mainly lower income women who give up working after having their first child

Work or children?

It’s a conflict that has led 14.5% of South Korean women in their second year of marriage to abandon their jobs, a study shows.

The percentage of women giving up work after having their first child was also shown to be correlated with job quality in terms of wages.

Statistics Korea released findings on May 30 from a dynamic analysis of the period one year after marriage. The findings showed 27,000 of 117,000 households that had been dual-income in 2014, or 23.2%, were down to a single income in 2015. Among the 77,430 couples that had their first child during the same period, a total of 31,868 (41.2%) were dual-income, down by 7,478 (9.6 percentage points) from the 39,336 (50.8%) tallied before the birth in 2014.

Statistics Korea’s dynamic analysis survey assessed 235,000 couples who had married between Nov. 2013 and Oct. 31, 2014, to see what changes they had undergone one year later in 2015.

The reduced percentage of dual-income couples after the first childbirth appeared to be the result of women giving up their jobs. A total of 11,236 wives, or 14.5%, left work after having their first child. Their decision to abandon employment also appeared to be tied to the quality of their job: 85.8% of women who gave up work after having a first child reported annual income of 30 million won (US$26,700) or less. In contrast, 13.1% said they had have given up a job with an annual income between 30 and 50 million won (US$26,700-44,500), while just 1% walked away from a job paying more than 50 million won a year.

“Ahead of any question of whether to keep working or give up work while they raise children, the income level at the job they used to have appears to have a major influence,” Statistics Korea said.

By Bang Jun-ho, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

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