KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

Traditionally, female workers are assumed to exhibit lower and more sporadic attachment to the labor force than their male counterparts. This is in part because of sex differences in responses to family transitions such as childbearing and childrearing, but it may also reflect differences in the types of jobs that men and women hold. This study has analyzed the types of job transitions among men and women using Korea Labor and Income Panel Study(KLIPS) 1998-2007. First, this study has investigated three types of job turnover; voluntary exits from jobs and from the labor force and involuntary job separation among men and women in the U.S. and Korea. Second, This study has examined the transition from nonstandard employment to standard employment and the changes in wages of whom experienced the job transition between nonstandard and standard employment.

Using event history analysis, the results highlight that women are more likely to leave the labor market than men, but no more likely to voluntarily change jobs and involuntarily lose jobs. Further, women are no more likely to move to standard employment than their male counterparts. Further, women in managerial and professional jobs are more likely to lose jobs, but less likely to leave the labor market voluntarily than other women. Regarding educational effects, while education does not make significant differences in the timing of various job transitions, women with 4-year university or higher degree are more likely to leave the labor market voluntarily than women with highschool degree. Finally, the results emphasize that any preschool child(ren) at home lead women to make job transitions: women with young children are more likely to leave the labor market, make voluntary transition to another job. However, women with young children make slower transitions from nonstandard to standard employment than other women.

Altogether, this research implies that highly educated women are less motivated in participating in the labor market and tend to face a barrier in making advance than other women. Further, young children play a role of shaping interrupted employment patterns as well as making frequent job changes among mothers.