IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/femeco/v27y2021i1-2p133-151.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Explaining Gender Gaps in the South Korean Labor Market During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Sunyu Ham

Abstract

This study explores the reasons for the gender gaps in the South Korean labor market during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show that 5.5 percent of women are on leave of absence, more than double the percentage of men (2.5 percent). Women have also experienced more unemployment than men. Using a decomposition method, this study finds that one-fifth of the gender difference in leaves of absence is explained by women’s concentration in the care and hospitality industries, which have been disproportionally affected by the pandemic. Moreover, women’s uneven distribution in part-time jobs also contributes to explaining 16.8 percent of the total gender gap. However, 60.8 percent of gender differences in leaves of absence were unexplained by existing arguments, such as occupational or industrial gender segregation and women’s precarious job status. This study shows that this unexplained difference could be caused by the gendered caring role imposed on women.HIGHLIGHTS The COVID-19 pandemic reproduced existing gender inequalities in the labor market in South Korea.Women workers experienced more unemployment and leaves of absence than men workers.Married women workers experienced more adverse outcomes than unmarried women workers.However, married men workers experienced fewer of these outcomes than unmarried men workers.Women’s concentration in paid and unpaid care duties were the major explanation for gender gaps.

Suggested Citation

  • Sunyu Ham, 2021. "Explaining Gender Gaps in the South Korean Labor Market During the COVID-19 Pandemic," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1-2), pages 133-151, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:27:y:2021:i:1-2:p:133-151
    DOI: 10.1080/13545701.2021.1876902
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13545701.2021.1876902
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13545701.2021.1876902?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ishaan Bansal & Kanika Mahajan, 2021. "COVID-19, Income Shocks and Female Employment," Working Papers 69, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    2. Ana Tribin & Karen García-Rojas & Paula Herrera-Idarraga & Leonardo Fabio Morales & Natalia Ramirez-Bustamante, 2023. "Shecession: The Downfall of Colombian Women During the Covid-19 Pandemic," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 158-193, October.
    3. Haeyoung Jang & Seung-Ho Kwon, 2022. "Understanding women’s empowerment in post-Covid Korea: A historical analysis," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 33(2), pages 351-376, June.
    4. Sven Horak & Yuliani Suseno, 2023. "Informal Networks, Informal Institutions, and Social Exclusion in the Workplace: Insights from Subsidiaries of Multinational Corporations in Korea," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 186(3), pages 633-655, September.
    5. Corsi, Marcella & Ilkkaracan, Ipek, 2022. "COVID-19, Gender and Labour," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1012, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    6. Fırat Bilgel & Burhan Can Karahasan, 2024. "Understanding Covid-19 Mobility Through Human Capital: A Unified Causal Framework," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 63(2), pages 793-833, February.
    7. Qi Zhang & Xinxin Zhang & Qi Cui & Weining Cao & Ling He & Yexin Zhou & Xiaofan Li & Yunpeng Fan, 2022. "The Unequal Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Labour Market and Income Inequality in China: A Multisectoral CGE Model Analysis Coupled with a Micro-Simulation Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-21, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:27:y:2021:i:1-2:p:133-151. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RFEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.