KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

This study investigated what occurred in the labor market after economic crisis, based on a gender perspective. More specifically, The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of unemployment insurance by observing whether unemployment insurance can work well in terms of having the unemployed workers hired and work in a stable way, based on gender perspective way. This study analyzed Korean Labor Income Panel Survey data to do so. The statistical method this study used was event history analysis. This study also used in-depth interviews on females who are suffering from the economic crisis. Workers with regular job sector as well as men were more damaged than their counterparts after the first crisis in Korea, but workers with irregular jobs as well as women more damaged than their counterparts after second economic crisis in recent times. There are two kinds of labor market. One is called the first labor market, better labor environments including high salary and working environments. The other is called the second market, worse labor environments compared to the first labor market. More female workers have been working in the second sector than male workers. For speaking the results, this study found that unemployment insurance could work well for male and female workers in terms of having them raise the possibility of escaping out of unemployment status. This study also confirmed that the unemployment insurance worked well, particularly for female workers in terms of stableness in working places as well as reduction of voluntary changing jobs. However, this study found that the unemployment insurance was not working well enough for preventing poverty resulted from the loss of jobs.