Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Six out of every 10 working women quit their jobs after marriage, while less than 2 percent of married females find new employment, according to a report by the Korea Labor Institute released on Thursday.

According to a survey of 3,245 women, more than 58 percent quit work after getting married and only 1.7 percent of those who were unemployed before marriage found jobs after tying the knot. The survey showed that married women are less likely to work than single females. The employment rate for married females was only 16.4 percent while that of single females was 27.6 percent.
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200311/kt2003112018173011990.htm

[anae]

Me: I have big news. We are getting married!
Young Korean female co-workers: Oh you're so lucky. Now you don't have to work!
Me:

[Chonbuk]

This is the thing about Korean women that I don't really get. Most of the women that I have met here are working women, teachers. But it is when I talk to my students or non-teaching people that I really have begun to understand that so many see their jobs as burdens. Yes I can understand that they do have very low salaries, and work long hours. The way I see it though is that by continuing to quit at marriage time they are perpetuating the idea that woman are only employable for a few years and thus not worthy of receiving high salaries or consideration for any type of promotion.

I really believe that these woman are making things a lot more difficult for the few people (men and women) that are fighting for equal rights.

I can understand taking time off to have children, but I can't understand doing so for marriage. Men aren't that needy that they require another whole person to care for them. Plus imagine the pressure that it puts on the man to support 2 people on his salary.

Wouldn't she get bored? Where would her sense of self-worth come from?

I just don't understand their thinking.


Dazed,

Chonbuk

[Austin]

[Real Reality]

What percentage of men quit work upon marriage?

[Tiger Beer]

I'm a feminist man.. a proud supporter of equal rights. It is my dream to live out this dream by finding the ideal woman who will work for the rest of our lives, buy me a big house, and a nice car.

[ulsanchris]

I would suggest that a fair number of korean women don't want to work after they get married. They want to be housewives. NOt to say that there aren't career minded women in Korea.

[Dr. Buck]

The dream of many Korean women is to be barefoot and pregnant. They do, really. It's their brainwashed dream since being a little girl:
Must produce offspring at all cost.

[helly]

My wife went back to work (3 days per week) 3 months after our son was bored. She had a pretty cool job, found it interesting but not wonderful.

She didn't want to work because she questioned the trade-off of trusting our son to a babysitter for a fee for her not taking care of him.

The society seems to say work or marriage, yes. Interesting that many young women are now saying "no marriage" instead of "let's try to find a way to make it work." I think that says something about the attitude towards marriage in this society, more of a lifestyle and transaction than partnership for love. That's a different thread, though, and I believe it has already been done (probably started by Real Reality)

[Tiger Beer]

The sad thing.. as whats happening in the US and most other places in the world.. is that you HAVE to have a dual-income of both people working just to pay the bills. We have lost the luxery of being able to survive on a single income anymore.

Maybe Korea still has this luxery to be able to survive on single incomes.. I don't know. But back in the US.. the dual income system has increased the cost of living to such a degree that that is not only standard but its required.

To have either the husband or wife out of the working world is a significantly large burden on the other. Its almost unimagineable.

Sometimes it freaks me out a little bit to be dating non-western girls as they feel they have the luxery of not working after marriage. Back in the West, women prepare themselves for a lifetime of working and its kind of taken for granted.

I don't know how it happened or why.. but most western woman would not only be shocked but possibly offended if they were asked not to work. This is actually quite good for guys in the West as its almost necessary these days to have dual incomes to make ends meet.

[crazylemongirl]

You know what's weird is that when I was baby my dad stayed home with me and my mom went back to work.That may seem ok now, but please remember folks that this was in Canada in the early 1980s!

I take an even handed approach on the stay at home issue. I think that if a person wants to stay at home soceity should be supportive of that, raising children is an important job and one that demands respect. OTH, I don't like the idea that women should be seen just as carers and cleaners and men should be breadwinners. To me in equal society both moms and dads should have the oppourtunity to pursue either goal they want.

CLG

[Tiger Beer]

[crazylemongirl]

Actually in my case, the reason dad stayed home was because my mother got a job first. He works in the film industry so the are long periods when your getting established where you spend long periods unemployed.

Of course, my parents were part of the anti-establishment long hair brigade so that situation suited their ideology perfectly.

CLg

[Tiger Beer]

[kiwiboy_nz_99]