Gendered working-time arrangements and their policy implications: Korean experiences

Abstract

This study is to explore the reality of gendered work time and its policy implications. With the dual-earner model of family, the amount and manner in which time is spent for paid work, as opposed to unpaid work, constructs gender relations in Korea. This article raises the following questions. What is the impact of exceptionally long working hours on gender relations in the workplace and the family in Korea? In terms of time spent, to what extent are there changes in the unquestioned exclusive care responsibility by women and traditional notions of fatherhood? To what extent has the Confucian dichotomy of public (workplace) and private (family) been altered, in terms of the workplace practice of long working hours? In doing so, this study applies quantitative and qualitative data from various sources. The findings show that, despite moving towards a dual-earner reality, the Confucian dichotomy of unpaid work and fatherhood is still tenacious. Furthermore, the practice of extremely long working hours provides a ‘good’ reason for a father’s absence in unpaid work, which in turn reflects the Confucian fatherhood. Also, this prevents mothers from achieving fuller integration into the labour market. Given these findings, we can see that the practices of long working hours and Confucian traditions combine to generate a vicious circle of gender inequality in the labour market and the family. The policy implications of these practices are discussed.

Keywords

Dual-earner family gender inequality South Korea working-time arrangements

Introduction

This article sets out to explore the reality of working time and its implications for gender equality in Korea. The main argument of this article is that distribution and usage of time are integral to the understanding of gender relations. That is because, along with the dual-earner reality, what differentiates gender roles is not whether individuals have a job, but how and what amount of time they spend in paid as opposed to unpaid work. In other words, ‘the time men spend in paid employment determines how much time they have for their families; and the time women spend caring for their families determines how much time they have for paid employment’ (Figart and Mutari, 1998: 461).

Unlike Western Europe, where issues pertaining to working hours vis-à-vis gender equality have drawn attention (Fagan, 2001; 2007; O’Reilly and Fagan, 1998; Perrons et al., 2007; Sayer, 2005), in Korea, concerns about shortening the standard working days have only very recently surfaced, and the issue tends to be discussed in the context of labour conditions rather than gender inequality. However, given the importance of equal and balanced time allocation in both paid and unpaid work for gender equality, we need to look at working time via a gender lens. In particular, based on the strong Confucian traditions impacting gender relations in Korea, women have been presumed to be confined to the family and assigned to domestic responsibilities, as compared to men, who mainly work in the public sphere (Ebrey, 1991; Pascall and Won, 2004; Won, 2005a; 2005b). In this Confucian context, it is seen that the practice of very long working hours prevents men from undertaking unpaid responsibilities for their families, while compelling women to undertake disproportionate unpaid responsibilities, in addition to those of paid work in dual-earner families.

Under the context, this article seeks to answer the following questions: What is the impact of exceptionally long working hours on gender relations in the workplace and the dual-earner family in Korea, wherein the Confucian dichotomy of public (workplace) and private (family) has been strongly valued? Concretely, in terms of spending time, to what extent is there change in women’s exclusive care responsibilities and the Confucian concept of fatherhood in light of the contemporary dual-earner reality? Secondly, to what extent has the Confucian dichotomy of public (workplace) and private (family) weakened? In so doing, this article applies the notion of a working-time regime, which refers to ‘the set of legal, voluntary, and customary regulations that influence working-time practices’ (Rubery et al., 1998: 72). Given that this regime limits gender difference and promotes or diminishes gender equality in the labour market, it provides a useful framework to analyse the dynamics of working hours and gender relations.

Regarding the structure of this article, the first part provides an overview on theoretical approaches to working-time patterns, especially focusing on a gender sensitive analysis of work-time arrangements. A general picture of the dual-earner reality and the work-time patterns of women and men in Korea follows. Then, based on the theoretical framework and general picture of dual-earner reality, the gender-differentiated consequences of working-time arrangements, especially in terms of reconciling work and family, are revealed. In the conclusion, the implications of working hours for gender relations and public policy are discussed.

Methodological issues

This article utilizes both quantitative and qualitative data. Relevant quantitative data derived from official statistics were used. At the same time, qualitative data were derived from semi-structured interviews with employed men and women from dual-earner families.¹ In general, quantitative data outline the general pictures of working-time arrangements and practices, by looking at their extents and the emerging patterns at macro and collective levels. Qualitative data, on the other hand, tend to be superior in showing daily and idiosyncratic experiences behind the general pictures of working-time arrangements and their gendered dynamic. In that sense, quantitative and qualitative data are mutually complementary for providing an appropriate understanding of the gendered dynamics of working hours in Korea. Given that any finding is likely to be much more convincing and accurate if it is based on different sources of information (‘data source triangulation’: Brannen, 1992; Bryman, 1999; Yin, 1994), this article utilizes quantitative and qualitative data in terms of mixed methodology.

For qualitative data, the interviews were conducted with 13 individuals, consisting of 8 working mothers and 5 working fathers (see Table 1 for the participants). There were several rationales for recruiting the participants. First, based on the main objective, the questions were focused on the realities for the dual-earner households. Time pressures experienced in dual-earner households are fairly different and much more pressing, compared to their single earner counterparts. Also, because this study was designed to explore the ‘gendered’ manner of time arrangements, both women and men were recruited. Gender relations, as a ‘social’ construct, can be properly understood in constant reference to men’s and women’s situations. Therefore, it is essential to compare working mothers’ daily experiences regarding time arrangements to those of working fathers, in order to draw a ‘real’ picture of gender relations in the Korean working-time regime. Particularly, working women and men with children less than 10 years old were recruited. In comparison to parents with older children, parents with children younger than 10 years have many more difficulties reconciling between work and family in terms of time allocation.

Table 1.

Participants in this study

Name	Working sectors	Children	Name	Working sectors	Children
Mrs Kang	small business	2 (5/3yrs)	Mrs Ha	small business	1 (1yr)
Mrs Byun	political party	2 (13yrs)	Mrs Kim	big business	2 (6/4yrs)
Mrs Lee	big business	1 (3yrs)	Mrs Shin	big business	2 (7yrs/NA)
Mrs Ji	big business	1 (4yrs)	Mrs Ku	big business	1 (6yrs)
Mr Hwang	local government	2 (6/3yrs)	Mr Min	small business	2 (6/1yr)
Mr Kho	central government	2 (8/6yrs)	Mr Jun	small business	2 (5/3yrs)
Mr Kim	big business	1 (5yrs)

Regarding the number of interviewees, this study was based on the concept of ‘theoretical sampling’ (Finch and Mason, 1999: 293). Unlike statistical sampling that focuses on representativeness of a population (Finch and Mason, 1999), theoretical sampling selects participants based on theoretical grounds for their inclusion (Bryman and Burgess, 1999: xvi; Finch and Mason, 1999). Therefore, the number of participants is relatively small. Even if there is not a universally agreed size for the number of participants in theoretical sampling, the number of interviewees tends to be around 15 ± 10 (Kvale, 1996: 102).

Theoretical background: A gender-sensitive approach to Korean working-time arrangements

How do we explain the dynamics of working-time arrangements or practices in Korea? Overall, there are several approaches to temporal structure in modern society, including the neo-classical and the Marxist approaches (Sirianni and Negrey, 2000; see also Fagan, 2001; Sirianni, 1987). Firstly, based on the neo-classical economy approach, working time can be explained in terms of time allocation and the plurality of choices for consumption of time (Becker, 1965; Sirianni and Negrey, 2000). According to this approach, allocation of time depends on choices made between paid work and consumption of time, and rational choices are made by people who seek to maximize the allocation of scarce time. Therefore, as far as gender is concerned, different and sometimes asymmetrical arrangements of time in paid and unpaid work between men and women are regarded as a matter of free choice (Becker, 1965; 1985; Hakim, 1996; Sirianni and Negrey, 2000). That is, while rational women ‘choose’ to invest less time in their paid jobs, which is directly related to their role as wives and mothers, rational men ‘decide’ to concentrate their time on paid work under the rational calculation. Therefore, it ‘justifies the unequal allocation of gendered labour across household and market work’ (Sirianni and Negrey, 2000: 61).

Regarding the relevance of an economic approach to working time in terms of gender dynamics, this is problematic because the influence of structural factors is neglected (Crompton and Brockman, 2007; Fagan, 2001; 2007). It assumes that humans are rational and independent of social structure. Also, it does not pay attention to structural or social factors which influence decisions regarding working time made by women and men in concrete ways. However, in reality, human activities, including allocation of working time, are products of the structural context, and are ‘embedded’ in structures of social relations. Given that gender relations are constructed socially and structurally (Connell, 1987), social constraints or pressures such as the Confucian gender ideology force women to decide time allocation in a certain manner. In this sense, the economic approach to time allocation has little relevance for working time ‘in the context of a gendered social world’ (Sirianni and Negrey, 2000: 61; Tomlinson, 2007).

In the meantime, using the Marxist approach that focuses on the commodification of labour power under capitalism, working time is also discussed in terms of commodification of labour time. According to Marxists, capitalists try to maximize surplus labour time to accumulate capital through surplus value. Naturally, along with an increase in productivity, surplus labour time grows relative to necessary labour time. In this process, workers lose power to control their labour and leisure times, and are therefore alienated from their own time (Sirianni and Negrey, 2000).

Regarding the analysis of gender relations in working time, the relevance of the Marxist approach is questionable. In common with the majority of Marxist approaches, working time is given attention under the conflict between capital and labour. That is, ‘gender’ relations are not taken as a significant analytical category or as an independent variable to explain working time. However, as Walby notes (1990), ‘with concepts of class, issues of male power in paid and unpaid work became private matters and explicable solely in terms of the capital’s interests’. Indeed, the reality faced by women regarding working time is different from that faced by men. Furthermore, the different reality of women concerning working time results not only from capitalism but also from men. Along with this argument, Sirianni and Negrey (2000: 60) clearly note:

What the Marxian analysis overlooks is (1) gender as a factor in the differential value of market labour and (2) market labour in the context of a gendered rest of life. Is free time – that is, time off the job – equally ‘free’ for women and men?

In this sense, for a relevant analysis of differentiated working-time distribution between men and women, we need to pay attention to gender arrangements, which the Marxian approach and time-allocation theories neglect. Hence, this article adopts the ‘gender’-based working-time regime as a conceptual framework to analyse working-time arrangements in Korea. The working-time regime refers to ‘the set of legal, voluntary, and customary regulations that influence working-time practices’ (Rubery, et al., 1998: 72). Given that the regime acts to limit the extent of gender differences and promote or diminish gender equality in the labour market, it provides a useful framework for this article. In doing so, this article presumes that working-time arrangements differentiated along gender lines are not ‘casual but structured, not local but extensive, not transitory but stable, as a deep-rooted social structure’ (Cockburn, 1991: 6).

In addition to the gender factor impacting Korean working-time arrangements, Confucianism needs to be mentioned as a cultural background. Although Confucianism as a philosophy and worldview provides quite complicated guiding principles and ideals of social relations and social behaviour, this study selectively focuses on the rigid gender relations in accordance with the main interests of this article. In Korean society, women have traditionally been in a disadvantaged position relative to men. This has been mainly supported and justified by Confucian gender ideology, which assumes that ‘separate’ and unequal roles for women and men are natural (Cho, 1995; Gelb and Palley, 1995). Gender relations in Confucian ideals are manifested in the relationship between husbands and wives. A clear line between husbands and wives is drawn in terms of different roles, behaviours and living or social space. This idea evidently assumes a hierarchical relationship between men and women, and separate spheres between them in the name of the law of nature (Ebrey, 1991). Therefore, Confucian gender ideology has presumed the family as the primary place of women, especially married women, and working mothers are deemed as people who are in an inappropriate place (Won, 2005a). Even in the workplace, a rigid dichotomy based on Confucian ideology is also influential. Regardless of female involvement in the labour market, a clear line between men (workplace) and women (family) works as an underlying principle for the allocation of time between men and women. Based on the Confucian dichotomy, good fatherhood and good motherhood, rather than good parenthood, are differentiated. While good motherhood is equivalent to staying at home with children, good fatherhood is equivalent to being a capable breadwinner (Son, 2005; Won, 2005a; 2005b).

Keeping these arguments together, a ‘gender’-based working-time regime enables us to take ‘gender’ as an analytical category. Also, it identifies the ways in which men’s power over women has been exerted in Korean working-time arrangements, both in paid and unpaid work, and in culture-specific ways concerning the Confucian dichotomy between men and women.

Moving towards a dual-earner reality in Korea

Traditionally, based on the Confucian traditions and male-breadwinner ideology, the family and labour market are deemed to be separate spheres in Korea. Naturally, this rigid dichotomy hinders women, especially married ones, in entering paid employment.

However, over the past 20 years, somewhat different pictures have emerged in the Korean labour market. Regarding the general pattern of female participation in the labour force, the overall share of women’s involvement in paid employment has increased – reaching 41 percent in 1985, 47.0 percent in 1990 and 50.3 percent in 2009 (NSO (a), 2010). Although this rate is lower than those in other OECD countries, which are approximately 60 percent on average (Tomlinson, 2007), there has been a steadily rising trend. What is notable is that, since 1990, married women’s labour force participation has exceeded that of unmarried women (see Figure 1). Active integration of married women into the labour market has been accompanied by a decline in the birth rate, which plummeted from 4.5 in 1970 to 1.22 in 2010 (NSO (a), various years). In addition, extended educational opportunities for young women and a consequential labour shortage could be factors explaining an increase in labour participation by married women. For instance, high school graduation of women has remarkably increased from 8.4 percent in 1975 to 35 percent 2005 (NSO (a), various years). Furthermore, since the economic crisis in 1997, restructuring of the labour market and the resulting high level of men’s unemployment have forced married women into the paid employment (KWDI, 2010; NSO (a), various years; Won, 2005a).

Figure 1.

Female labour force participation by marital status (1970–2009). Unit: %. Source: NSO (a), Economically active population survey (1970–2009). KWDI, Women in Korea, 2010.

Along with the changing reality of the labour market, substantial changes in the perception of the ‘married’ woman’s employment can be observed. In surveys on attitudes towards women’s paid employment, men’s perception of female employment has become a significant issue. As we can see from Figure 2, men’s perceptions regarding their wives’ employment have moved remarkably in a positive direction. Concretely, in 1988, the majority of men surveyed were favourable towards female employment before marriage and negative about the employment of ‘married’ women. However, since 1998, a totally different picture has emerged. Men who were positively inclined about female employment only before marriage decreased dramatically from 30 percent in 1988 to 4 percent in 2009. On the contrary, the most dramatic change can be witnessed from the last item, i.e. agreement with female employment regardless of time. Whereas only 8 percent of men surveyed in 1988 were favourable towards women’s employment regardless of time, 51 percent of men surveyed in 2009 were favourable towards this idea (KWDI, 2010; NSO (c), 2010). What drew our attention was that men drastically moved towards being positively inclined after the 1998 economic crisis in Korea (Cho, 2002). This change can be interpreted as follows: Korean men expect their wives to share the breadwinning burden in situations of economic hardship.

Figure 2.

Attitudes towards female employment (1988–2009). Unit: %. Notes: Based on answers from male respondents. Source: NSO, Social Statistics Survey (1998–2006), KWDI, Women Korea, 2010.

In addition to an increase in employment rate and a changing perception of married women’s employment, the dual-earner reality is also confirmed by work-time distribution along gender lines. According to data from MOLAB, the average working hours of employed women and men are 49.5 and 51.1 hours per week, respectively (MOLAB, 2009). These data show that women work quite long hours in paid employment, even if it is shorter compared to their male counterparts. In particular, a reality of long working hours faced by Korean women is different from their Western counterparts, as discussed in more detail later.

In summary, a gradual movement towards dual-earner reality has been seen in Korea. As a result, married women with children are much more likely to be in the labour market. Also, given the men’s perceptual change toward women’s participation in the labour market, Korean women are expected to share the breadwinning burden with their husbands.

The Korean working-time regime: Excessively long working hours

Compared to Western countries, where a reduction of working hours to redress gender inequality is at issue (Anxo, 2007; Crompton and Brockman, 2007; Fagan, 2001; 2007; Perrons, et al., 2007; Tomlinson, 2007; Sayer, 2005), working-time practices in Korea are quite different. The issues of very short working hours are not as crucial as very long working hours in relation to gender equality. As widely known, the Korean working-time regime is characterized by the longest working hours in the world (KLI, 2008; Lee, 2007; Lee et al., 2007; OECD, 2010). As Figure 3 clearly shows, even if the average working hours have gradually decreased since 2000, Korean employees work much longer in comparison to workers in Japan, which is traditionally a country that has long working hours (Roche et al., 1996), as well as Western countries such as the USA, UK and France (Lee et al., 2007; Tomlinson, 2007). Despite the legal regulation of maximum working time being 44 hours per week, the average working hours of employed men and women are 51.1 and 49.5 hours per week, respectively (OECD, 2010). Furthermore, there is not a significant gap in the working hours of ‘full-timers’ and ‘part-timers’ in Korea. Unlike the Western context, the working hours of part-time workers should instead be categorized as long-hour workers, which means that part-timers are exploited not only in terms of wages and benefits, but also working hours.

Figure 3.

Working hours in selected countries (2000–2009). Unit: Hours per year. Source: OECD, OECD Employment Outlook, 2010.

Given the excessively long working hours, there are some gendered characteristics of the Korean working time regime, which are different from their Western counterparts. First of all, women in Korea work quite long hours compared to their counterparts in Western countries (KLI, 2008; Pascall and Warren, 2003; Warren, 2000). Figures 4 and 5 show a Korean-specific pattern of gender differences in working time. Based on Figure 4, despite some cross-country variations, the UK, USA and Japan share a common feature in an overall pattern of working time distribution by gender. That is, short working hours are concentrated among female workers, while over-working is predominantly found in areas of men’s employment. Naturally, gender gaps both in long working hours and short working hours are quite salient. On the contrary, in the Korean working-time regime, the average working hours characterized along gender lines are considerably different from the conventional patterns shown in other countries. Unlike the UK, USA and Japan, in Korea, the proportion of women working short hours is not greater than the comparable proportion of men. Rather, an overall pattern of average working time for female workers has a similar curve as for their male counterparts. In a word, unlike other countries, it is not the case in Korea that ‘over-working’ is predominantly a male trait (see Heo, 2008; KWDI, 2010; Won, 2005a). This pattern has not changed until very recently (see Figure 5).

Figure 4.

Distributions of working hours by gender in selected countries (2004). Unit: Hours per week. Note: Data on total employment. Source: Lee et al. (2007).

Figure 5.

Distributions of working hours by gender in Korea (2009). Unit: Hours per week. Note: Data on total employment. Source: KWDI, Women in Korea, 2010.

The reality of extremely long working hours regardless of gender is also confirmed by some qualitative data. Interviewees showed that their actual working hours were far beyond the official data. In practice, non-social working hours included weekend work as well as evening and night work, which are hard to capture in official data about length of working time in the Korean working-time regime. According to related researches (Lee, 2007; Lee et al., 2007; Won, 2005a), the majority of workers complained that they worked much longer than what was shown by official data. They were actually forced to work more than 12 hours per day, despite the legal working regulation, and usually without extra compensation. Unbelievably, many female workers interviewed supported the reality of 12 working hours per day, as referred to below.

Even if 8 hours a day is specified in the law, it’s usual for us to work almost 12 hours and even more especially when we are busy … Working all night long … When I was pregnant my first baby I was suffered from premature birth … That was because, regardless of pregnancy, I was forced to work as if I’m a man. (Mrs Ji)

I usually wake-up 5:30 and arrive at my office 7:00 in the morning … And I finish my work 8:00 at night … How long do I work for a day? … In my company, as a leading company, for successful career building, time does matter!!! (Mrs Lee)

As far as working hours are concerned, from 8:00 to 9:00 and beyond, my company forces workers to left behind the family … We have to do as if we are single without family responsibility … Moreover due to economic downturn, we must work much harder and longer, in order to prevent us from lay off … Especially women do so … (Mrs Kang)

Are fathers visible? Gendered time allocation in unpaid work and reinforcing Confucian fatherhood

What does the Korean specific pattern of working-time arrangements by gender imply for reconciliation between work and family? As we have seen, Korean women work long hours in the workplace as often as Korean men do. At the surface level, an extremely long working time is challenging for both men and women when trying to accommodate both work and family. Even though an unbalanced involvement of women in unpaid work, especially related to time spent, tends to be a general phenomenon, except in Scandinavian countries (see Fagan, 2001; Lee et al., 2007), the Korean reality is an extreme case. In terms of time spent on unpaid work, the gender division is strongly persistent. According to a survey of daily time usage for unpaid work by gender and marital status, there is a considerable difference between single and married women (NSO (b), 2010). Figure 6 shows that while single women usually spend 54 minutes per day on unpaid work, married women spend 4 hours and 7 minutes, which means married women spend 4 times more than single women. Therefore, marital status makes a substantial difference regarding time usage for women in Korea.

Figure 6.

Time spent on domestic work by household types and marital status (2009). Unit: hours: minutes per day. Notes: beyond 20 year-old people. Source: NSO, National Survey of Time Use, 2010.

In contrast, for men, marital status is not a pivotal factor in time allocation as in the case of women. As can be seen in Figure 6, married men generally spend 46 minutes on unpaid work per day, whereas single men usually spend 26 minutes on unpaid work per day, which means married men spend only 20 minutes more than single men. Interestingly enough, a fairly similar picture emerges by household type (NSO (b), 2010). As shown in Figure 6, for women there are substantial differences in time usage between single-earner (6 hours and 18 minutes) and double-earner households (3 hours and 21 minutes). However, with respect to men’s time spent for unpaid work, we cannot find any significant difference between single-earner and double-earner households. That means, irrespective of single or double earner households, men spend approximately 30 minutes on domestic chores during a day. In a word, employed married women spend approximately 7 times more time on unpaid work compared to their husbands. In comparison with the Western reality that women spend about 2 times longer than men on unpaid work (Lee et al., 2007), the Korean pattern represents an extreme gendered time allocation difference.

In a similar vein, Figure 7 also clearly shows the extent to which married women in Korea shoulder a heavy burden of unpaid work, irrespective of their employment. Although women in single-earner households participate more in unpaid work (92 percent in aggregation of only wife and mostly wife) than women in dual-earner households (87 percent), time use patterns on unpaid work are extremely gendered. Given the fact that women’s involvement in paid work does not make a big difference in the division of labour in the family, employed mothers in Korea are, to a substantial degree, conducting a ‘second shift’ (Kang and Yoo, 2005; Pascall and Won, 2004; Won, 2005a). In a word, a resurgence of gender inequality is shown regarding time allocation for double-earner families.

Figure 7.

Sharing unpaid work by household types (2008). Unit: percent. Note: SE (single earner family); DE (double earner family). Source: NSO, Social Statistics Survey, 2009.

The excessive differences in time arrangements along gender lines are clearly confirmed by qualitative data. The majority of men interviewed strongly argue that extremely long working times constitute a rationale for the extraordinarily gendered time allocation for unpaid work. Men frequently mention the Confucian concept of fatherhood, which stresses being a capable breadwinner based on the public (labour market: fathers)/private (family: mothers) dichotomy.

Father’s role is to provide children with economic security rather than staying with them longer. That’s (staying longer and caring) mother’s responsibility … (Mr Hwang)

Do you know how busy I am? I, as a breadwinner, have to make money for them (family) … I am too busy to take care of them inside the family (Mr Min)

I hadn’t enough time for even (paid) work … When I was terribly busy, I usually came back home at 2:00 AM almost every day … I could see my kids only while they were sleeping. (Mr Kho)

Further, the following comments illustrate the extent to which extremely long working-time practices make fathers ‘invisible’ inside the family:

In reality, I help my wife only in about 5% of her work. I don’t have time to help her. Usually, I come back home around 10 o’ clock and I go to work on Saturdays or even Sundays … How can I help? Also, if I don’t go to work on Sundays, I spend all day to sleep … (Mr Jun)

My husband is terribly busy … right after international business trip for 1week he has to back to work … I saw him only for 30 minutes a day in the last week … It’s usual for him to back to home at 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning … I sadly feel as if I’m a widow … How can I ask him to help me to care kids … don’t even think about that … Time after time I feel to be forced to decide whether I take home or work, rather than combination of them … (Mrs Du)

My company is really tough, in terms of performance pressure … Recently I can take domestic work 0% … Two years ago when I worked in ex-company, I could pick her (his daughter) up … But now? not at all … My company is notorious for long working hours … might be the longest in Korea … almost 12 hours a day … If my wife is not a primary school teacher, who is relatively loose in terms of time pressure, we won’t be dual-earner family at all. (Mr Kim)

The situations in these households naturally draw a picture of the double-burden that employed mothers have to undertake along with the ‘terribly’ long working-time regime. Some empirical studies confirm that given the persistence of gendered Confucian norms, the majority of Korean working mothers, regardless of their income and educational levels, are unable to negotiate the sharing of unpaid work with their husbands (Kang and Yoo, 2005; Kim, 2005; Kim and Kim, 2007; Son, 2005).

Gendered concept of time commitment in long working-time arrangements

Korean women in dual-earner family face dual pressures from the extremely gendered division of labour in unpaid work and very long working hours in the labour market. In what ways has the double burden affected women’s career progress in the workplace? In order to address this issue, we need to pay attention to the male-specific concept of organizational commitment. As Sirianni and Negrey argue (2000: 66), ‘andocentric concept of career, which emphasises high levels of time commitment and so that reputation for achievement are strictly against “time”’ disadvantages those who interrupt or reduce on work for the purposes of caring works. Generally, this occurs in the case of women, given that caring is still deemed as a woman-specific matter in Korea. Especially, in the light of Confucian traditions in Korea that rigidly accept the paid work/unpaid work dichotomy as a norm, workers are presumed to be men who have stay-at-home wives, rather than women who bear the dual-burden of being mothers and supportive wives. This is evident in the comments from the following interviewees:

Despite the unchanged ideology of men and women, women come out as paid workers … Confucianism is still here … still strong … In ideology workers are naturally men but in reality women are also workers … The role as paid workers is simply added to mothers or wives’ role without any change in Confucian ideology … It might be regarded as a silly thing, but women in the past who didn’t have to balance between, being workers and mothers, or wives were happier than now. (Mrs Kang)

Working longer and longer is taken for granted in Korea … that’s problematic. For men, it doesn’t matter much because of their supportive wives, but for us (women) it isn’t the case … big problem … I usually leave the workplace even under pressure to work at night … leave behind the negative reactions of my boss and colleagues. I try to think it’s enough to work during the day time … Nevertheless, I am not comfortable in this situation … a kind of guilty feeling. (Mrs Ha)

Under the masculine concept of paid work, women in dual-earner families have been forced to accommodate the family with paid work as if they were men without or with fewer family responsibilities. However, the married women are unable to meet these requirements due to their gendered responsibility for unpaid work, and consequently they have a severe conflict between paid and unpaid work, as depicted by the working mothers interviewed.

I’m wondering how my female colleagues, especially married one, can accommodate work with family at the same time in my company which is notorious for long working time … Because of their children and home, some of them (female colleagues) dare to stop their work exactly at 6 o’clock, irrespective of pressure from management … We call them as ‘exact 6 o’clock women’ … They won’t be expected to getting managerial positions at all … I think they must be clearly aware of that … (Mr Kim)

Absolutely, time does matter … For example my husband is free anytime, from 6 am to 2 am next day … He is always available … But for me, availability is primarily dependent on kids, husbands, and sometimes even family-in-law … My husband takes usually international business-trip twice a month … It is totally impossible for me as a married woman with a kid … Hence, in my company as a leading and excessively competitive organization, men like my husband who are available whenever, whatever, wherever are very welcome and much likely be high-flyers. (Mrs Byun)

Even if it varies by companies, the majority of Korean companies force their employees to be involved fully regardless of time, in the dawn, daytime, night time … I begin my work at 6:30 in the morning … But I am not allowed to behind kids or family chores … my husband doesn’t think those things as a part of his responsibilities … I have to fully commit to my work in the daytime and take care for my kids and domestic works at night … It’s terrible hard to manage … What I can do is to give up successful career building. (Mrs Kim)

How do employed women deal with the somewhat dilemmatic demands of paid and unpaid work? Time use data are useful to find a possible answer (NSO (b), 2005, 2010). According to Figure 8, employed women’s time use patterns are becoming equitable to men’s time patterns for study and personal care. In particular, men’s and women’s paid work times are gradually converging, although men still invest more time in paid work than do women. On the other hand, men’s time on unpaid work has stagnated; from 24 minutes in 2004 to 25 minutes in 2009. Regardless of women’s involvement in paid work, women have to continue to take a ‘significant’ amount of time for home management and care – more than three times that of men’s involvement in these unpaid tasks. This gendered time allocation has not changed between 2004 and 2009. In particular, what draws our attention is the time for non-productive activities. Figure 8 shows that women have much less time for leisure and travel in comparison to men. Taken together, women are very likely to compensate time for paid work and home management/care at the expense of their free time. After all, despite the active involvement of females in paid work, Korean men have not even slightly increased their unpaid work time, whereas women have increased paid work time without any substantial changes in unpaid work time. This means that employed women are doing a double shift with less leisure time.

Figure 8.

Time spent by activities (2004, 2009). Unit: hours: minutes per day. Note: Employed people only. Source: NSO (b), 2005, 2010.

Discussion and conclusion

Coupled with the dual-earner reality, working-time arrangements construct gender relations in both the workplace and the family. Therefore, in considering the interaction between paid and unpaid work, this article addresses some of gendered implications of practices involving working-time arrangements in Korea. The findings show an interesting picture of the Korean working-time regime, which is quite different from its Western counterparts. First of all, the Korean working-time regime is identified as excessively long working hours, irrespective of gender or employment status. Despite the dual-earner reality, an overly gendered division in unpaid responsibilities underlying the Confucian traditions, which assumes that the public sphere (of men) is different from the private (of women), is still persistent. The interplay of the two factors (very long work hours for paid work and the Confucian gender division in unpaid work) contributes to the gendered reality faced by employed men and women with respect to accommodating work and family. Extremely long work hours provides ‘good’ reason for fathers’ absence in unpaid work, emphasizing the Confucian notion of good fatherhood, which is no longer tenable in dual-earner reality. On the contrary, these two factors prevent mothers from full integration into the labour market and even serve to ‘weed them out’ from successful career building. Consequently, these situations mutually generate a vicious circle of women’s subordination and reinforce gender inequality in the labour market.

Notably, under the double pressure from long-working-time practices in the labour market and extremely unbalanced responsibility for unpaid work in the family, employed women are forced to sacrifice their free time, which is increased for Korean men because of a decrease in men’s paid work involvement. In a word, without a considerable decrease in time for unpaid work responsibilities, long-working-time requirements for female workers may result in a new type of gendered time allocation for non-productive activities, which is emerging as another issue for further research on time use.

Keeping these findings in mind, there are several implications for public policy affecting working-time practices. Generally, the Korean government is passive in implementing public policy for shortening very long working schedules (Lee, 2007; Lee et al., 2007). Instead, it tends to help, implicitly or explicitly, the capitalists to mobilize labour forces through the practice of long working hours. As a result, until very recently, reduction of working time has not been given priority as a policy agenda (MOLAB, 2008). Furthermore, the Korean government seldom pays attention to the gender-laden consequences of long-working-hour practices. However, in order to ameliorate problematic consequences resulting from long-working-time practices and gendered time allocation, the Korean government has to implement a more comprehensive policy. First of all, the Korean government needs to show its genuine will to regulate extremely long working-time practices. The Korean government has stipulated maximum working time as 44 hours per week (MOLAB, 2008). However, the existence of a legal regulation by itself does not guarantee actual compliance. What becomes important here is a substantial implementation enforced by consistent monitoring and realistic penalty systems. Otherwise, legal regulations remain merely symbolic gestures. In fact, the observance rate, estimated by ‘the proportion of paid employees who are working at or below the statutory standard hours in each country (Lee et al., 2007: 38) confirms that working-time regulation in Korea is far from de facto regulation. According to Lee et al. (2007), the observance rate in Korea was only 24 percent in 2007. This rate was considerably lower than the rates in other Western countries such as the USA (69%), Canada (89%) and Finland (90%). Furthermore, it was much lower compared to Japan (54%), which is one of longest working-time regime countries.

The big chasm between statutory working hours and real working-time practices in Korea, which causes ‘legal nihilism’ (Chetvernian, 2004; quoted from Lee et al., 2007: 136), is much more challenging for women. That is because Korean employed women are faced with an extremely gendered double time pressure from unpaid and paid work. More seriously, this formalized regulation applies to organizations with a minimum of 300 workers. Given that the vast majority of Korean women (about 87%) are employed in companies with fewer than 300 workers (MOLAB, 2010), it is likely that questions will arise about whether the legislation contributes to a substantial reduction of working hours for employed women, and if the Korean government has the genuine will to achieve gender equality in the labour market by addressing the issue of working hours.

A second policy issue concerns part-time work. Basically, the direction of current policies favours the shortening of working hours for both men and women (Lee et al., 2007). However, the Korean government has to be cautious to use part-time employment as a policy solution for reducing working times. That is because even part-timers are required to work longer hours than their contracts state in Korea, even if this practice is illegal. Because of the reality of part-time employment, despite the predominance of women as part-timers (more than 70% of part-timers), the gender difference in long working hours (more than 50 hours per week) is remarkably small in Korea (Lee et al., 2007; MOLAB, 2008). Interestingly, in Korea, part-time work is not the matter of ‘working time’ itself. It is rather a matter of employment status and overall working conditions such as disadvantaged promotion, career development or wage discrimination (Lee, 2007; Lee et al., 2007: 134). Therefore, without substantial reduction of working hours and improvement of working conditions or substantial status of part-timers, part-time employment would not be a policy measure to ameliorate a gendered working time allocation. Rather, it would marginalize women both in the labour market and the family. Hence, the Korean government has to take action actively to ameliorate disadvantaged working conditions and status of part-timers, in order to make part-time employment a viable solution.

Last, but not least, the Korean government has to encourage fathers to be involved in unpaid work. It is not possible to achieve this by merely reducing working hours. Rather, it is necessary to change customary Confucian notions of fatherhood through compulsory measures such as forced paternity leave or daddy’s week. Even if paternity leave or childcare leave already exist in the Korean public sectors, the fathers’ participation in taking such leave is negligible (under 5%) (MOLAB, 2008; Won, 2005b). To increase visibility of fathers in unpaid work, leave systems need to be made compulsory rather than being optional alternatives. Otherwise, leave systems will remain a mere menu among the variety of policy tools, and remain ineffective. In the meantime, quality childcare facilities subsidized and regulated by government would be a valuable policy instrument. Korean childcare policy is characterized by a residual welfare approach, meaning that childcare services are provided selectively for low-income families and the Korean government is passive concerning regulation of their quality. Therefore, comprehensive quality regulation and expansion of entitlements for childcare services need to be seriously considered (Apps and Rees, 2005; Won, 2005b). These policy measures will make fathers visible in unpaid care work and differentiate organizational commitment from time commitment.

This article began with the question: Is it appropriate to discuss working time in a gender-free context in Korea? Throughout the article, the answer has been clear; gender does matter in the Korean working-time regime, where excessively long working hours are highly valued and Confucian gender ideology is still strong. In fact, the existing body of research regarding working-time arrangements is heavily biased towards Western countries. As a consequence, there is a knowledge gap in developing countries. Given that this article tries to show the unique reality of gender relations regarding Korean working-time practices, which are not unveiled, it contributes to filling the gap. In particular, in order to highlight the uniqueness of Korean reality, this article also tries to compare the Korean case against Western cases.

Nonetheless, there are limitations that are worth considering. Unlike Western countries where working-time practices have been a critical issue of political and social debates (Anxo, 2007; Golden and Figart, 2000; Lee, et al., 2007; Messenger, 2007), working-time issues have not been highlighted in Korea. Furthermore, discussion about working-time practices via a gender perspective has been extremely rare until very recently. In that situation, appropriate data on working-time practices and gender differences are very limited and insufficient. Moreover, even if this study searches the equivalent data between Korea and other countries, it is also true that there is a time difference in the statistical data and available information. Even though it is an inevitable situation in terms of data availability, the findings have to be carefully considered. Also, more systematic data creation and collection regarding working-time practices, especially in developing countries, and more comprehensive analysis based on the data, remain as important research agenda items for the future.

Footnotes

Note

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