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Marriage losing appeal for Korean women
By Claire Lee
For Kim Eun-jin, a 36-year-old working mother in South Korea, being at work is her “break”. She gets up at 4:30 a.m. every morning, leaves for work and returns home at about 8:30 p.m. What awaits after her long commute – she lives in Incheon and works in Seoul – are dirty dishes and unfolded laundry. She makes dinner, does the dishes, mops the floor and folds the laundry. Then she spends about 30 minutes talking to her kids – one 8, the other 12 – who are looked after by Kim’s mother-in-law during the day. There is no time for rest. She usually goes to bed after midnight. “If I get to live another life, I’d like to live as a single woman”, Kim told The Korea Herald. “I don’t necessarily regret getting married. But I don’t necessarily want to go through it again, either. I’ll admit – being married and a working mother can be really hard at times”.
Kim is one of 44 percent of South Korea’s married women who think marriage is not necessary for everyone.
According to a recent study by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, which surveyed 11,009 married women nationwide, 44 percent of the participants said marriage was only optional and not mandatory. Of the total, 6 percent said it is in fact better for women to stay single. Last week, a separate study revealed that 50 percent of Korea’s single women thought marriage is an option rather than a necessity.
Researchers said poor work-life balance and lack of financial independence may be the biggest reason why married women feel skeptical about marriage. They pointed out that married women in their 30s and 40s, as well as those with low education levels were more likely to have a negative view of married life. “Compared to women in their 20s or 50s, women in their 30s and 40s are often faced with a situation where they have to juggle child care, careers, and domestic chores all at once”, researchers wrote in the report. “This indicates that those who are the busiest are the unhappiest in their marriage”.
Meanwhile, the report showed that highly educated women felt happier in marriage than those with lower education levels. While only 2 percent of married women who have postgraduate degrees said it is better for women to stay single, almost 15 percent of those who never attended high school said the same. “Our data show that many highly educated women stay as housewives either voluntarily or involuntarily after getting married”, said KWDI researcher Kim Young-ran. “Data also show that highly educated women are more likely to marry high-earning men. The work-life balance may be better for the financially stable, highly educated married women who don’t have to have full-time jobs than those who have both professional and domestic obligations with limited financial stability”.
Kim pointed out that Korea’s male-dominated corporate culture does not allow male employees to fully participate in childcare and family life. “It’s still unthinkable for male workers to get a few days off at work to look after their sick kids”, she said. “If the work culture does not change, family life won’t change, either. And more women would avoid being married, as marriage in general gives them more work at home and this becomes a disadvantage in their careers. The fact that even married women – who have the experience of marriage – don’t exactly recommend getting married, reflects how prevalent sexism is at both home and work in Korea”. As of 2014, the latest figures by Statistics Korea showed that 22 percent of married women quit their jobs because of childcare related reasons, including employers that fire female workers who become pregnant.
(Adapted from http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160719000872.)
The last paragraph of the text refers to the role of Korean corporate culture in the topic of the satisfaction of women with marriage in Korea.
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