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With their husbandsĄŻ jobs insecure and household debts and education expenditures mounting, a growing number of Korean mothers look for low-paid and grueling so-called McJobs. The number of married women working in casual jobs increased by 150,000 over five years from 536,990 in 1999 to 688,000 in 2003. Another statistic shows that as of late last year, 31,000 married women tried to find a job.
This suggests that a high employment rate among women does not necessarily mean their position in society has improved.
National statistics show that the index for womenĄŻs participation in the economy rose by 2 percentage points from 47.8 percent in 1994 to 49.8 in 2004. But that rise is mostly due to more women, in particular married women, working in low-paid McJobs.
According the National Statistics Office, women accounted for 44.3 percent of part-time workers in 2003, up from 38.5 percent in 2000. Among them, the proportion of married women also increased from 29.6 percent in 2000 to 32.6 in 2003.
Dr. Lee In-jae with the Korea Labor Institute said most married women, regardless of their level of education, work casual or irregular jobs that are easy to leave and give them free use of their time, adding this contributed to degrading the quality of womenĄŻs work as a whole.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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