Women’s labour market transitions during COVID-19: division of gender roles and the gendered labour market in South Korea (2018–2020)

ABSTRACT

This study takes a closer look at the reasons behind women’s exit and entry from the labour market before and after the impact of Covid-19 (2018–2020) in South Korea. By running a random effects probit regression on KLoWF panel data, we find that the pandemic crisis put at risk the employment levels of the less skilled, but we also notice considerable employment resilience. Ultimately, women’s labour market transitions during the Covid-19 pandemic highly depend on women’s understanding of their contribution in the public and private spheres and work-family arrangements.

KEYWORDS:

• Work-family conflict
• COVID-19
• gender roles
• labour market transitions
• panel data

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our thanks to the participants of the “Social policy innovative and social cleavages in East Asian welfare states during and after the COVID-19 pandemic” online workshop (2–3 July 2022) and Yoonjin Lee for ideas and suggestions that helped us to further develop this study when it was still at a preliminary stage.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We are aware that including family support alongside the husband’s income could have helped determine the support system for women (Lee et al., 2020). However, the KLoWF dataset has several missing data regarding respondents’ relationships with their family members. We chose to focus instead on the husband’s role in terms of income levels and working hours to be able to discuss findings from previous studies and make comparisons with them.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ijin Hong

Ijin Hong is an Associate Professor at the School of Government of Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), P.R. China. Her recent work is featured in a special issue of Social Policy & Administration about Chinese welfare development, which she guest edited with Prof. Kinglun Ngok. She wrote about comparative social policy and labour market policy in East Asia and Southern Europe in recent book publications such as the World Politics of Social Investment (OUP), Welfare Reform and Social Investment Policy in Europe and East Asia (Policy Press), and Handbook of Contemporary Welfare States (De Gruyter).

Zaiping Yang

Zaiping Yang is a doctoral candidate at the School of Government of Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), P.R. China. She is interested in anti-poverty and labour market activation policies, and in rural-urban inequality.