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2002-10-28 13:52:51, 조회 : 52 |
Patriarchy and Feminization of Workforce
Kyung Hee Kim(researcher, KWWAU)
1. Introduction
Korean women workers have been marginalized in labor market through the restructuring process and IMF bailout period. Mass layoffs of women workers in manufacturing and financial industries and a general increase in the irregularization of the female workforce shows that the employment situation has greatly deteriorated.
This in turn has led to a decrease in the ratio of organized women workers and weakened the capacity of trade unions to improve working conditions for women workers, causing a dark cloud of uncertainty to project a shadow over the future of women workers.
Korean society, notorious for its strong Confucian tradition, through patriarchal structure sets restrictions on the involvement of women workers in the labor market. During the period of economic recession women workers were forced to accept discriminative treatment during the period of economic recession due to the sexual division of labor, worsening the seriousness of this problem.
This paper aims to examine how patriarchy has affected Korean women's economic activities and work environment since the 1980s' during the industrial and economic restructuring process and to examine the principal alternatives available to Korean women workers.
2. IMF, Patriarchy and Korean Women Workers
During the IMF bailout period, economic recession and the subsequent mass dismissals forced a number of workers, a disproportionate number of which were women, from their workplace and stripped them of the means to earn their livelihoods. From July 1997 to July 1998, for men chances for employment decreased only in the areas of skilled labor, manipulation of machinery and manual labor, while those for women were found to have decreased in the areas of clerical work, service, sales, manipulation of machinery, and manual labor. In the area of clerical and sales work, there was an increase of male employees by 5.3% and 2.4%, accompanied by a simultaneous decrease in the number of women workers by 18.4% and 6.5%. In addition, according to the following <Table 1.>, for women the greatest losses were in the area of permanent work, jobs that provided stable employment. Regarding the change in employment of permanent workers according to gender, the ratio of female employment decreased by 19.7%, while that for permanent man workers was by 6.4%. This makes evident that during the economic hardships from the restructuring process, regular women workers were transformed into irregular workers. (Cho, 2000)
<Table1> Number of workers by employment type and type
(thousand, %)
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gender/employment type July 1997 July 1998 %
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Men Total 8,112 7,473 - 7.9
Permanent 5,143 4,815 - 6.4
Temporary 1,884 1,763 - 6.4
Daily 1,085 895 - 17.5
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Women Total 5,237 4,629 - 11.6
Permanent 1,955 1,507 - 19.7
Temporary 2,373 2,228 - 6.1
Daily 909 831 - 8.6
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Source : Bureau of Statistics, Research on Employment Situation, July1998
This chart demonstrates that employment conditions for women workers have been drastically worsened. Should women workers be the objects of prior dismissal for economic recession? What is the reason for the mass layoffs of regular women workers and sharp increase of in the number of temporary women workers? Patriarchal ideology in Korea is still so ingrained that this tradition defines man as head of his family and he should support his wife and children. The family wage supports this ideology, forcing men alone to be the breadwinners for their families, deterring women from entering the workforce in Korean society and lower the status of women workers. This lower status is the main cause of the wage gap between men and women workers.
This socially tacit assumption that women can not be the breadwinners in their families - prohibited the unemployment problems of women workers from entering the spotlight. In the mid-1980s', the problem of employment stability for women workers began to emerge following mass layoffs and the forced conversion or permanent positions into irregular positions because of business closures and relocation of manufacturing factories. Though in the early 1990s', women's organizations brought up the issue of the problem of the increase in either outright unemployment or the unsecure employment of women, even labor movement circles couldn't recognize the severity of the matter. This was due at that time to the major demand of trade unions being an increase in wages. The male-dominated trade unions were less concerned about the plight of women workers forced from their workplace and the irregularization of their employment conditions. The Korean male-oriented labor movement as well as government policies only recognize men workers as typical workers and heads of their families contributing to the prejudice that "men are to support the family and women are to be supported". It was notable during the economic crisis that women workers were the first targets to be fired and last to be hired.
The following "early dismissal" case of women workers employed by company "A" in 1999 was the typical type of restructuring process that occurred in patriarchal Korean society. The company adopted an early retirement policy for its restructuring and its first targets were women workers who had husbands working in the same company. The company told women workers to leave the company and if not, their husbands would be told to take a temporary leave, which meant their husbands would be the targets for the second round of restructuring program. 688 women workers of 752 couples working at the same company were forced to leave the company. ERP generally means voluntary early retirement accompanied by financial compensation in order to promote ERP. It is one of the firing measures used to give workers a chance to choose whether to leave voluntarily or to stay and be fired before a forceful dismissal. As a result, just 10 couples could continue to work and 688 women workers left their workplace. Their retirement seemed voluntary, but it was based on the presumption that the primary earner of the family was the husband- thus it was the result of a patriarchal society limiting the choices of individuals.
However, it is obvious that this traditional misunderstanding of division of labor according to gender is changing in Korean society. Many women want to obtain jobs and to maintain them after marriage and delivery of children. Single women are increasing and due to changes in the social structure as well as an increase in the divorce rate, women have to support themselves and their families. Also, during the economic crisis, the pressures on married women increased for those who experienced the loss of their husbands' jobs and failures to obtain new jobs.
3. The Feminization of Work and Poverty
According to the research on the marital status of working women since the 1990s', the ratio of married women are on the increase. As of 1998, 47.3% of all working women were married, an increase by 13.2% in comparison to 34.1 % in 1990(Table 2).
<Table 2> Trends in number of employed women by marital status
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year 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998
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Total 1,525,649(100) 1,489,946(100) 1,411,780(100) 1,486,440(100) 1,273,328(100)
Married 520,165(34.1) 558,551(37.5) 607,546(43) 659,459(44.4) 602,571(47.3)
Single 1,005,484(65.9) 931,395(62.5) 804,234(57) 826,981(55.6) 670,757(52.7)
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Source : Ministry of Labor, Wage Survey Reports, yearly reports.
Until the IMF bailout period, the number of working women including married women had continuously been on the increase. The ratio of those engaging in economic activities for women was 41.9% (5,975,000) in 1985, which had increased to 49.1% (8,891,000) in 1997, demonstrating the feminization of workforce in Korean society. However, this active involvement in economic activities couldn't improve their status in labor market and the feminization of workforce bore three characteristics.
First, though the number of working women had increased due to the demand for women to participate in the labor market and particularly in the service industry, throughout restructuring and economic crisis, the feminization of unemployment was remarkable. The number of women obtaining jobs decreased by 602,000, 6.9% in 1998, which was notable compared with the rate for men in obtaining a job, 4.1% in the same year. Since the 1980s', in the labor intensive industries, especially in the manufacturing industry for clothing, footwear, and electronics there has been a continuous decrease in employment opportunities particulary after the mass layoffs (1996). IMF bailout period affected the women workers more strongly by the mass dismissals. More female workers lost their jobs than male workers.
The second characteristic is the feminization of unstable labor. According to the statistics, as of 1999, of all working women, daily based employment accounted for 70.5%, much higher than 40.6 % for male workers. Thus two out of three women workers are irregular workers (KWWAU, 1995). This shows that this feminization is still in process. Women workers enter the service industry because they can get jobs relatively easily and companies want to hire more temporary women workers for labor cost reduction. Part-time women workers are also increasing. While part-time based work is the main employment type for married women in the Western countries, it is primarily for single women in Korea.
According to the research on the actual employment of women workers, 17.7% of all the women workers are in their age of 25-29, 13.2% in their age of 35-39 and 40-44, and 12.7% in their age of 20-24. This proves that companies hire single women on an irregular basis to minimize their costs in Korean society. The reasons for the rapid spread of the feminization of irregular workers in Korea are the company and government policies of "flexible labor" in correspondence to the process of economic globalization. Globalization is making a market for the unlimited competition of capital, and the labor flexibility policy is spreading for the purpose of securing profits for the maximization of competition between capital. For the flexible labor market, the government made so-called a new workforce policy. It divided present workforce into a core and periphery workforce and through dismissals, irregularization, subcontracting, and outsourcing, they tried to minimize labor cost and to achieve numerical flexibility of controlling the number of labor according to the change of outputs. Such government policies for women workers didn't provide any counter policies to secure or expand the employment on the regular basis, even led women workers to take part in manual or irregular working positions, and helped to threaten the stability of employment for women workers. As long as the policies remain effective that define married women as housewives and encourage the part time basis as proper working position for women workers. The sexually discriminative division of labor will be intensified which helps to reinforce patriarchal system of employment and practices in Korea.
Third, lowering stability of employment for women workers and increasing the number of irregular workers due to unemployment and getting jobs on the temporary basis proved the feminization of poverty is on the progress. Income decrease due to their or their husbands' losing jobs and reduction of social service and support by the government, burdened women responsible for reproduction labor within their families. When the income decreases, women tend to work for more hours or to increase time for their house chores while minimizing expenses for living and saving more. In 1998, the average hours of working women in the manufacturing industry was 200 hours a month, which was more than that of both men and women, 199.2 hours and it was the longest working hours among OECD member states according to the statistics in 1998. Government implied that the economic status of women was improved, releasing that the wage gap between men and women in 1998 was 63.7%, decreased from 62.1% in 1997. But, this was because of the big decreasing wage of men during the same years, when the wage of women workers was also lowered. The average wage of male workers in 1992 was 1,640,000 won and that of women workers was 1,020,000 won, while in 1998, the wage of men was 1,580,000 won and 1,010,000 won for women workers. The statistics came from the research for workplace with more than 10 employees which usually are reported that can give better working conditions for women workers than in workplace with fewer than 10 employees. According to the research of KWWAU, 32% of irregular workers had to work in the irregular basis because they couldn't find regular jobs and answered in affirmative regarding discrimination of wage and allowances. This showed that due to forceful irregularization of women workers, the poverty of women workers is getting intensified.
4. Conclusions
Patriarchal society endowed men to have the rights and authority to play a main role in supporting their families as breadwinners and the structure of labor market based on the division of labor by gender restricted the women workers from taking part in labor market. Women, recognized being responsible for domestic chores and rearing children, came to experience prior dismissal and to get unstable jobs, considered as half worker. Even globalization process and government policies for women workers corresponding to the trend and forceful restructuring process since the economic crisis worsened the status of women workers as periphery workforce in labor market. Due to expansion of service industry, increase of women workers, and the increasing demand for jobs of women due to men's unemployment, feminization of workforce set the basis for changing patriarchal Korean society. Yet, it couldn't lead to the improvement of economic status and patriarchal system correlated with the realization of capital interest in globalization process and labor flexibility policy dove out women into the worse situation. The present situation, resulting in the process of feminization of workforce as well as feminization of unemployment, irregularization and poverty, can't be changed without active movement of women workers through organizing themselves against the patriarchal governmental policies, endless pursuit of profit maximization of capital along with the globalization process, and the male-dominated labor movement. The organizing ratio of women workers decreased from 17% in 1980, down to 5.6% in 1997 by 11.4%. During the same period, that of male workers decreases from 14.7% down to 11.2% by 3.5%. in addition, regarding the number of workers by gender, the number of men has increased for the past 20 years from 697,000 in 1978 up to 1,148,000 in 1998 by 451,000, while that of women has greatly decreased from 358,000 in 1978 down to 254,000 in 1998 by 104,000. The decrease of the number and ratio of organizing women workers was due to getting jobs in small sized-companies which employ under 10 workers and increase of temporary workers which requires the appropriate strategy for women labor movement.
In January 1999, against the decrease of organization ratio for women workers, sharp increasing irregular women workers and male-dominated labor movement, Women workers trade unions set out. These spread their struggle to improve real situation where 64% of women is working in workplace with fewer than 5 employees and 70% of them works as irregular workers, which is deteriorating working condition and poverty of women. Setting up "action center for restoring rights of irregular workers" centered in KWWAU, and solidarity activities with other women trade unions, women labor organizations, and others trying to revise the Labor Law, are mainly purposed to achieve as followings.
1) securing employment and its promotion
2) making effective policies for the unemployed and irregular women
3) expansion of rights for protection of maternity
4) expansion of government support for both work and family
5) equal pay for equal work for irregular as well as regular workers
6) establishing affirmative action programs for revising sexual
discrimination in labor market.
7) introduction of quota system for women for the sharing of power and decision-making at all levels in trade unions.
Those are not only for legal counter activities of women workers but also for the new trial and women friendly management of the organization considered the situations of working women whose employment types are various. Their reactions against the patriarchy forcing women to accept three burdens as mother, housekeeper, and peripheral worker and against the unstable employment of women workers due to globalization and capitalism, should expand at the transnational level. Women's struggle against the transnational capitalism, can be realized only when they gain solidarity through internal and international integration movement. Women's organization struggling against the diversification of employment according to labor flexibility policy need to be subdivided for the demand of women workers. Women, in patriarchal capitalist society, need to accept the strategy to catch up with women workers' demand, to make consolidated solidarity with other women labor organization, women organization, and trade unions focused on the agenda, and to have the bigger and powerful voice.
References
Kim, Kyung Hee. 1996. "The Industrial Restructuring in Korea and Unstable Employment for Women Workers." Vol.7. Women and Society. Creation and Criticism Press.
Ministry of Labor. 1999. Women and Employment. Ministry of Labor.
Cho, Soon Kyung. 2000. "Economic Crisis and Conditions for Equal Employment." Labor and Feminism. Ewha Womans University Press.
Korean Women's Workers Associations United et al. 1999. Employment Status and Proposals for Action for Unorganized Women Workers. Unpublished.
Korean Women's Workers Associations United et al. 2000. The Strategies of Organizing Women Workers in the 21C : the Experiences of the Women Trade Union and Its Future Tasks. Unpublished.
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