KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

The economy of South Korea has been experiencing a continuous decrease of growth rate and job creation capacity. The real economic growth rate has continued to decrease from 7.7% in the 1980s to 6.3% in the 1990s and to 4.4% in the 2000s. The employment coefficient which indicates job creation capacity has been decreased from 12.7 employees in 1995 to 7.2 in 2000 and to 3.8 in 2010. According to the employment coefficient of an inter-industrial relations table, the demand for women employees needed for production per unit has fallen from 8.3 employees in 1995 to 2.7 in 2010. As the employment coefficient has declined amid the slowdown of economic growth rate, the rate of women’s employment increased only slightly from 47.0% in 2000 to 48.1% in 2011. Therefore, it is hard for us to expect a large quantitative increase in the number of jobs for women and, unlike before, only a limited number of knowledge-based service industries – such as healthcare, social welfare service, education and enterprise services industries – create women jobs. The purpose of this study is to develop policies on women’s employment in the medium and long term perspectives in an era of changing economic growth strategies. Under the three-year-long research project, a first-year and a second-year researches were conducted to examine economic growth strategies of the current government and to explore policy challenges in creating women jobs. In the first year research, we looked into how we can develop and utilize female human resources in the green growth sector. In the second year research, we analyzed the prospect of women’s employment in the service sectors and developed policies to create jobs for women. This third-year study, as a final stage of the three-year-long research project, is focused on understanding the current state of women’s jobs in the labor market. The major target groups are women in their 20s and early 30s and in the child-bearing and child-rearing phase of the lifecycle. Accordingly, we analyzed the following subjects: the status and characteristics of female jobs, structures of women's employment, fluctuations in economic activity of young employees and their current employment status, turnover of young and women employees in the phase of giving birth and raising children, utilization of maternity protection act for women workers after childbirth, retention of female employees, types of female employment, working hours and working conditions of female employees, family relationship, rate of satisfaction with jobs and the transition of employment status of women in the period of childbirth and child-rearing. Based on those results, we suggest specific policies to solve the problems of career-breaks women experience in the phase of childbirth and child-rearing, which are different from the previous approaches merely focused on maternity protection. Based on basic statistical data such as national account, economically active population survey and wage structure survey and OECD publications, we analyze the structures and changes of women’s employment as well as the employment state of youth by gender. We examine regional employment state survey results and maternal leave panel data from employment insurance database to analyze the career-breaks of young women employees as well as their utilization of maternity protection act. Moreover, we utilize Korea Labor Institute Panel Survey (KLIPS) to analyze both the employment status of women workers in relation with childbirth and their intention to leave their jobs during childbearing and childrearing phases. The findings of this study are as follows. First, female employment structures in South Korea show that 70% of women are likely to be employed from 25 to 29 years old, but many of them experience the career-break for marriage, childbirth and child-rearing. Especially, highly-educated women tend not to re-enter the labor market anymore after withdrawal for childbirth and child-rearing. Furthermore, there is a tendency that the ratio of women in temporary and irregular employment is relatively high, but the number of full-time and regular women workers tends to decrease drastically in the period of childbirth and child-rearing. Second, when it comes to the employment structures of young people, most of employees in their early 20s are temporary or irregular workers, regardless of gender. If we ask about the period of time when the ratio of regular workers is higher than that of temporary workers, the age is 25 years old for men and 23 years old for women. Since then, the proportion of full-time workers has risen for both men and women, but after 30 years old, that of men decreased slightly and for women, the proportion fell sharply. Regardless of the education status, the employment stability of both men and women employees in youth is much higher in their later 20s than the earlier years. In addition, employees with a two-year college degree enjoy more employment stability than those with a high school diploma. Furthermore, employees with a two-year college degree or higher are employed as full-time workers after the mid twenties. When we compared gender difference of employment stability for highly educated employees, employment instability is higher for men in their early 20s when compared with women in their 20s, but from the age of 29 years, the employment instability is higher for women than for men. Third, the analysis of the turnover rate of women workers who used maternal protection system or benefits, the employee retention rate of women workers who only used the maternal leave before childbirth is 55.1%, which is slightly higher than that of women workers who used both maternity leave before and after childbirth and child-raising leave is 47.0%. Moreover, after utilization of maternity protection system, the bigger the size of firms is, the higher the employee retention rate is. In short, the difference of employee retention rate is determined by the size of firms. Fourth, according to the empirical analysis of the factors which could influence the employee retention of women workers using maternity protection system, the longer female employees work, the older they are and the older the age of their child is, the higher the chance they will not leave their jobs. In terms of the working conditions, the higher the wage level is, the higher the employee retention rate is. And the longer the actual working hours are, the lower the employee retention rate is. Fifth, the empirical analysis of the turnover of women workers after childbirth shows that women workers who had earned more income before childbirth with higher job satisfaction are likely to maintain their employment status. Women with higher organizational commitment also maintain their employment but the maternity protection system of workplace do not influence their intention to be employed continuously. However, the maternity leave right after childbirth can be a significant factor for women to return to their workplaces after giving birth. Before the birth, the satisfaction with income level, tasks, and working life are important reasons for staying in jobs, but after childbirth, we find that women workers are more influenced by more general reasons rather than by the aforementioned reasons. Sixth, the biggest situational factors to make women workers consider the withdrawal in the period of child-bearing and child-raising are long working hours and irregular types of working (ex. night shift and weekend work). The other factors are long commuting hours and when women workers have two children or more under the age of five. This study suggests that policies to promote female employment should be transformed from the existing approach of setting individual policy goals to an integrated policy mix package. Based on the research findings, the following policy suggestions are put forth to address career breaks of female workers in the childbearing and childrearing phase: 1) strengthen the expansion of women jobs and support for job placement, 2) strengthen support for young women's transition into labor market, 3) improve working conditions and employment stability for young women workers, 4) enhance the effectiveness of maternity protection programs in terms of their performance and financial management; 5) strengthen government support to establish favorable working environments and maternity protection programs offered by the companies, 6) improve the maternity protection system to raise the employee retention rate in the period of child-rearing, 7) strengthen the organic connection between maternity protection system and flexible work arrangements.