The Grand Narrative

(Photo by Hiromy)

Yes, I know that picture is actually from Japan: I’ve started…ahem…to pay attention to the copyright of photos I find on the internet, and beggars can’t be choosers sorry. As for today’s post, some very quick blog/personal stuff first, but if you’d rather skip that, fuck off scroll down to the next photo.

Given the increasing geekiness of this blog, I don’t think readers will need me to defend my claim that I find Korea to be a fascinating place to study, but I’ve noticed that until recently most of my posts seem to highlight some negative aspect of Korean life, point out what should be but isn’t being done about them…and, well, that would be that. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but surely it can get a bit repetitive after a while, and although there’s definite limits to the political activism a non-Korean can do here, merely blogging about Korea’s problems ultimately leaves me open to the charge that I’m no better than the Itaewon-dwelling expats I denigrate so much, claiming to know so much about Korea but never doing anything but complaining about it.

(Sinfest) 

No don’t worry, I’m not going to swing completely the other way to compensate and give happy, clappy stories about Korea that would not be out of place on the government propaganda channel otherwise known as Arirang, but when I get back to Korea in a few weeks I do mean to see if there’s any proactive environmental, rights-watchdogish…hell, even feminist clubs and/or organizations I can join. Sure, I have fiendish ulterior motives, one of being that all my Korean friends have now left Busan and I’m lonely I need Korean friends to bounce ideas and opinions off, and the other is that translating short newspapers on the blog in noooo way implies Korean fluency, so yeah, I’ll also be joining to get Korean practice.

Having said all that, I’m in Australia at the moment and about to go off and hang out with kangaroos and emus for a couple of days, so the actual joining will have to wait. To prepare though (for coming back I mean, not the kangaroos) I’ve been checking out the excellent and self-explanatory blog TwoKoreas: Labour, Social Movements, Politics to learn more about the dirty, stinking, hippy, lesbian communists I want to get to know better in 2008, and in the process I came across the site LabourStart which gives regular, recent information about the scum of the Earth’s strikes, demonstrations and general activities in Korea and around the world. Seriously, regardless of your political orientation it does present a side of Korea rarely shown on Korean TV, but still absolutely necessary to understanding it, so from now on I’ll be checking it out pretty regularly myself.

(Photo by e-chan. Also from Japan…I’m terribly sorry)

But having said all that, I clicked on the LabourStart link in the first place because I noticed its links to the following news stories from the OECD’s “Policies for Balancing Work and Family” report. Normally I’d hate to just copy and paste the articles, but they’re all from the Korea Herald, which means they’ll only be available to subscribers after a few days…so it’s, well, paste it or waste it really. I’ll probably be referring back to them a lot in the future, but if anyone from the Herald has a problem with them in the meantime, let me know (update: the English ChosunIlbo has a similar short report that will be online for much longer)

First, this one from Wednesday:

Korea has most unfriendly work conditions for women in OECD: report

Korea Herald 12.12.07

Korea has the most unfriendly work conditions for women among the world’s more advanced economies, said a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which was quoted by Yonhapp News Agency.

The report cited by the National Statistical Office (NSO) showed that South Korean women work more hours that others in the 30-member OECD, while getting paid less than their male counterparts.

The findings showed that 77 percent of women workers put in more than 40 hours a week at their jobs in 2005. This, the report said, is much higher than the average 49 percent tallied for the whole of the OECD in the same year.

I can’t speak for the accuracy of the statistics in other countries, but that figure of 77 percent of women put in more than 40 hours a week under-emphasises the amount of work most Koreans do. While longer hours certainly doesn’t imply greater productivity (see Baltimoron’s comments to this post), in my own personal experience, most career-orientated Koreans of either sex would often work 60+ hours a week. Saying “more than 40″ implies that it may be or 43 or 45 or something, which doesn’t sound too onerous, but those hours would be very rare in Korea.

The NSO said the percentage was 13 percentage points higher than the United States where 64 percent of women put in more than 40 hours a week at work. The figure for Japan was 48 percent, while that for Sweden was 40 percent.

The report also showed that women workers were paid far less than male workers. It said male workers were on average paid two times more than female workers in Korea. The low salaries may help explain the lower percentage of well-educated Korean women who join the workforce compared to other countries.

As of 2004, the OECD report said the employment rate for Korean women with collage degrees or above stood at 57 percent compared to 59 percent for those with high school diplomas. Korea is the only OECD member where the participation of well-educated women in the workforce is below that of those with high school diplomas or less.

In the case of the United States, Australia, Germany, Britain and the Netherlands, the percentage of women with collage degrees or above in the workforce is 20 percent higher than those with less education.

I didn’t expect that. But in hindsight, a ready explanation comes to mind. Is it because women with only high-school diplomas are more likely to do be doing menial, non-advancing factory jobs, but in Korea the kind of jobs that most tertiary-educated women would want to do are just so difficult to continue after marriage and having children that they just drop out and become housewives? In 7 years teaching in Korea, I have met many well-educated, intelligent married women who join English classes even if their English is fluent, all simply because they are bored at home. At the moment that’s the only explanation that makes sense to me, but I’m interested in hearing any other ideas. After I finish this post I’ll ask my wife what she thinks, and once I get back to Korea I’ll ask my Korean friends (both female, both now housewives) as well.

In addition, the OECD report said the employment rate of Korean women was 52.5 percent for those of hiring age, which is below the 56.1 percent for other member states. “The OECD said such practices as nudging female employees to quit regular positions after they have children, and lower pay levels compared to males must be corrected if work conditions for woman are to be improved,” an NSO official said.

The official said that Korean men worked the most per week among OECD members states, but the difference between their working hours and those of men in the United States and Japan was not great.

(Ahem, still have a lot of copyrighted pictures to get rid of…but at least it was taken in Korea, yes?)

And then one from Thursday. I’ve only included the last third of it because the first two-thirds gave exactly the same information as the one on Wednesday, just in slightly different words. This is one reason why I haven’t subscribed to the Korea Herald in many years.

Korean Women Work Longest Hours in OECD

Korea Herald 13.12.07

…

The average salary for Korean women was also significantly lower than working men, a gap that is more than two times the OECD average, the report found. It highlighted that the yawning difference discouraged women from seeking jobs.

The National Statistical Office explained the country’s socio-economic shortcomings to a lack of systemized employment policies and a family-unfriendly employment culture compared to advanced countries, where the female employment rates and birth rates are rising.

As of 2005, Korea had the lowest fertility rate, of 1.1, while the employment rate of females (aged 15 to 64) stood at 52.5 percent, lower than the OECD average of 56.1 percent.

The report addressed the need for Korean companies to be more family-friendly. It stressed the need to protect the rights of full-time female workers, rather than relinquishing their full-time positions before and after giving birth.

It suggested wages should not be determined by hours worked but on performance, stressing that full-time employees should have more flexible working hours and part-timers more job security with the aim of being more family-friendly.

By Yoo Soh-jung

(sohjung@heraldm.com)

(Photo by Brookesb)

And finally, an editorial from Saturday. It’s always good to see, but to be honest I’ve been reading virtually identical opinions across the English-language media ever since I became interested in the issue. Again, once my Korean ability becomes good enough to translate articles from broadsheet newspapers, at least in a time-frame that’s actually useful to someone anyway, looking for evidence of similar sentiment in them is one of my first priorities. But surely if they’re in English sources on Korea then they’re in the Korean ones too? After all, its not like they’d offend North Korea (and so are taboo). So there’s really no excuse for some action on it from the next Administration come Wednesday. It’s well overdue, so here’s hoping.

[Editorial] Pro-family Policies

Korea Herald 15.12.2007

As Korea struggles to boost its very low birthrate - on average Korean women had just 1.08 babies in 2005, the lowest birthrate among all Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries - it is clear what it must do. Rather than provide one-time cash payments to women who give birth, the government should increase female employment by promoting family-friendly policies. 

Over the last 25 years, the relationship between employment and birthrate has changed. It may catch many people by surprise that studies now show that countries with the highest female employment rates are also among the countries with the highest birthrates.

Female employment in Korea in 2005 stood at 53.1 percent, relatively low compared to the OECD average of 56.1 percent. On the other hand, France, a country which has succeeded in bringing its birthrate up to 1.94 after years of decline, had 57.1 percent of its women in employment.

A recent OECD study also highlighted a glaring anomaly in the composition of the Korean female workforce. In all OECD countries, except Korea, women with a university education achieve higher rates of labor force participation than those with lower levels of education.

There could be many reasons for the comparatively low labor force participation by Korean women. The long working hours and the significant wage gap between men and women discourage women from continuing to work when they have children.

The pattern of female employment through lifetime shows that women leave work at childbearing age, reentering the work place once the children are older. When they return, they are given lower wages and positions with less responsibility. Women’s careers are interrupted again when they leave jobs to take care of elderly parents, a responsibility which often falls on the women.

Korean businesses must adopt more family-friendly policies to retain female workers. Having talented women leave the workforce when they have children — usually at a time when they are at their most productive — is a tremendous waste of investment in human capital. This is especially so when many of the top achievers in various civil service exams and professional qualification exams are women. Furthermore, with the labor force projected to decline in the near future, it is essential to have more women join the labor force. In other words, family-friendly policies are not a luxury but a necessity.

In this vein, the new law on promoting a family-friendly social environment could not have come sooner. When the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family scored 831 institutions in the government and private sectors as well as universities on a Family Friendliness Index which measured, among other things, the availability of flexible working hours, childrearing support and a family-friendly culture, the average score was a dismal 41.7 points out of a possible 100.

Family-friendly policies are a win-win strategy for both the employees and the employers. Employees will be better able to achieve a work-life balance — an issue that is becoming increasingly important as people seek a better quality of life — and companies will benefit from greater employee productivity and loyalty.

Instituting family-friendly policies may appear complex as they require new and creative methods of managing personnel and work procedures. It is when the person at the top of the organization is committed to family-friendly policies that they have a greater chance of taking firm root. It is time for our business and government leaders to rise to the new challenge.

(Photo by Brookesb)

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