IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/asieco/v19y2008i2p138-154.html

Women's labor force participation and marriage: The case of Korea

Author

Listed:
  • Lee, Bun Song
  • Jang, Soomyung
  • Sarkar, Jayanta

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the relationship between marital status and female labor force participation in Korea, and argue that marriage remains a major obstacle to young Korean women's employment. We find that an average married woman is much less likely (by 40-60%) to participate in the labor force than a single woman in urban Korea. Further investigation into the participation patterns among married women reveals that labor force participation rate (LFPR) varies with husband's occupation and her own age. Lower LFPR among the young married women is explained by demand-side factors, while relatively higher LFPR among the middle-aged married women is mostly explained by the supply-side factors.

Suggested Citation

  • Lee, Bun Song & Jang, Soomyung & Sarkar, Jayanta, 2008. "Women's labor force participation and marriage: The case of Korea," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 138-154, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:asieco:v:19:y:2008:i:2:p:138-154
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1049-0078(07)00173-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kristin Mammen & Christina Paxson, 2000. "Women's Work and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 141-164, Fall.
    2. Dubin, Jeffrey A & McFadden, Daniel L, 1984. "An Econometric Analysis of Residential Electric Appliance Holdings and Consumption," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(2), pages 345-362, March.
    3. Costa, Dora L, 2000. "The Wage and the Length of the Work Day: From the 1890s to 1991," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(1), pages 156-181, January.
    4. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2000. "Gender Differences in Pay," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 75-99, Fall.
    5. Riboud, Michelle, 1985. "An Analysis of Women's Labor Force Participation in France: Cross-Section Estimates and Time-Series Evidence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 177-200, January.
    6. Kim B. Clark & Lawrence H. Summers, 1982. "Labour Force Participation: Timing and Persistence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(5), pages 825-844.
    7. R Sackmann & H Häussermann, 1994. "Do Regions Matter? Regional Differences in Female Labour-Market Participation in Germany," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 26(9), pages 1377-1396, September.
    8. Schultz, T. Paul, 1995. "Human Capital and Economic Development," 1994 Conference, August 22-29, 1994, Harare, Zimbabwe 183410, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    9. Susan Ettner, 1995. "The impact of “parent care” on female labor supply decisions," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 32(1), pages 63-80, February.
    10. Galor, Oded & Weil, David N, 1996. "The Gender Gap, Fertility, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 374-387, June.
    11. Goldin, Claudia, 1992. "Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195072709.
    12. Masaru Sasaki, 2002. "The Causal Effect of Family Structure on Labor Force Participation among Japanese Married Women," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(2), pages 429-440.
    13. Kim B. Clark & Lawrence H. Summers, 1981. "Demographic Differences in Cyclical Employment Variation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 16(1), pages 61-79.
    14. Edward C. Norton & Douglas O. Staiger, 1994. "How Hospital Ownership Affects Access to Care for the Uninsured," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(1), pages 171-185, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Ali Fakih & Pascal L. Ghazalian, 2013. "Female Labour Force Participation in MENA's Manufacturing Sector: The Implications of Firm-related and National Factors," CIRANO Working Papers 2013s-46, CIRANO.
    2. Enriqueta Camps, 2009. "Globalization and culture shaping the gender gap: A comparative analysis of urban Latin America and East Asia (1970 - 2000)," Economics Working Papers 1145, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    3. Nadereh Chamlou & Silvia Muzi & Hanane Ahmed, 2011. "Understanding the Determinants of Female Labor Force Participation in the Middle East and North Africa Region: The Role of Education and Social Norms in Amman," Working Papers 31, AlmaLaurea Inter-University Consortium.
    4. Hausmann, Ricardo & Nedelkoska, Ljubica, 2018. "Welcome home in a crisis: Effects of return migration on the non-migrants' wages and employment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 101-132.
    5. Stabridis, Omar & van Gameren, Edwin, 2018. "Exposure to firewood: Consequences for health and labor force participation in Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 382-395.
    6. Seneviratne, Prathi, 2020. "Gender wage inequality during Sri Lanka’s post-reform growth: A distributional analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    7. Jung, Haeil & Kim, Jun Hyung & Hong, Gihyeon, 2023. "Impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on single-person households in South Korea," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    8. Enriqueta Camps, 2015. "Market Openness and Culture as Factors that Shape the Gender Gap: a Comparative Study of Urban Latin America and East Asia (1960-2000)," Working Papers 694, Barcelona School of Economics.
    9. Ahmed, Salma & Feeny, Simon & Posso, Alberto, 2015. "What firm characteristics determine women’s employment in manufacturing? Evidence from Bangladesh," MPRA Paper 84492, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Prathi Seneviratne, 2017. "Female Labour Force Participation and Economic Development in Labour Abundant Countries: Evidence from Sri Lanka," Working Papers 2017-02, Carleton College, Department of Economics.
    11. Mumtaz Hussain & Sofia Anwar & Shaoan Huang, 2016. "Socioeconomic and Demographic Factors Affecting Labor Force Participation in Pakistan," Journal of Sustainable Development, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 9(4), pages 1-70, June.
    12. Ali Fakih & Pascal Ghazalian, 2015. "Female employment in MENA’s manufacturing sector: the implications of firm-related and national factors," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 37-69, February.
    13. Mudassira Sarfraz & Zubaria Andlib & Muhammad Kamran & Noor Ullah Khan & Hanieh Alipour Bazkiaei, 2021. "Pathways towards Women Empowerment and Determinants of Decent Work Deficit: A South Asian Perspective," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-18, August.
    14. Keuntae Kim, 2017. "The changing role of employment status in marriage formation among young Korean adults," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 36(5), pages 145-172.
    15. Zubaria Andlib & Aliya H Khan, 2018. "Low Female Labor Force Participation in Pakistan: Causes and Factors," Global Social Sciences Review, Humanity Only, vol. 3(3), pages 237-264, September.
    16. Menghan Zhao, 2018. "From Motherhood Premium to Motherhood Penalty? Heterogeneous Effects of Motherhood Stages on Women’s Economic Outcomes in Urban China," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 37(6), pages 967-1002, December.
    17. Hanan Nazier & Racha Ramadan, 2016. "Women's Participation in Labor Market in Egypt: Constraints and Opportunities," Working Papers 999, Economic Research Forum, revised May 2016.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Doepke, M. & Tertilt, M., 2016. "Families in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1789-1891, Elsevier.
    2. Greenwood, Jeremy & Seshadri, Ananth, 2005. "Technological Progress and Economic Transformation," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 19, pages 1225-1273, Elsevier.
    3. Maria Stanfors & Frances Goldscheider, 2017. "The forest and the trees: Industrialization, demographic change, and the ongoing gender revolution in Sweden and the United States, 1870-2010," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 36(6), pages 173-226.
    4. Finlay, Jocelyn E., 2021. "Women’s reproductive health and economic activity: A narrative review," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    5. Zvi Eckstein & Osnat Lifshitz, 2011. "Dynamic Female Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(6), pages 1675-1726, November.
    6. Lewis Davis, 2024. "Patriarchy, development, and the divergence of women's empowerment," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(4), pages 895-921, November.
    7. Robert M. Solow & Jean-Philippe Touffut (ed.), 2010. "The Shape of the Division of Labour," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14184.
    8. Masako Kimura & Daishin Yasui, 2009. "Production Structure, Household Time Allocation, and Fertility," KIER Working Papers 684, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    9. Mancini, Giulia, 2019. "The determinants of female labor supply in Italy, 1881-2018," MPRA Paper 102165, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Prathi Seneviratne, 2017. "Female Labour Force Participation and Economic Development in Labour Abundant Countries: Evidence from Sri Lanka," Working Papers 2017-02, Carleton College, Department of Economics.
    11. Jeremy Greenwood & Ananth Seshadri & Mehmet Yorukoglu, 2005. "Engines of Liberation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 109-133.
    12. Robert T. Jensen, 2010. "Economic Opportunities and Gender Differences in Human Capital: Experimental Evidence for India," NBER Working Papers 16021, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Bidisha Mondal & Aparna Govindarajan & Trisha Chandra, 2023. "Discouraged Worker Effect among Indian Women: Evidence from FLFP Survey," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 66(4), pages 1019-1040, December.
    14. Claudia Olivetti, 2014. "The Female Labor Force and Long-Run Development: The American Experience in Comparative Perspective," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital in History: The American Record, pages 161-197, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Ho, Chi Pui, 2016. "Rise of Women in Unified Growth Theory: French Development Process and Policy Implications," MPRA Paper 73864, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Seneviratne, Prathi, 2020. "Gender wage inequality during Sri Lanka’s post-reform growth: A distributional analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    17. Georgios Efthyvoulou & Pantelis Kammas & Vassilis Sarantides, 2020. "Gender voting gap in the dawn of urbanization: evidence from a quasi-experiment with Greek special elections," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 146, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    18. Tendai Zawaira & Manoel Bittencourt & Matthew W. Clance, 2018. "Gender Inequality and Marketisation Hypothesis in Sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers 201876, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    19. Jeffrey A. Flory & Andreas Leibbrandt & John A. List, 2015. "Do Competitive Workplaces Deter Female Workers? A Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment on Job Entry Decisions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(1), pages 122-155.
    20. Tiago V. de V. Cavalcanti & José Tavares, 2008. "Assessing the "Engines of Liberation": Home Appliances and Female Labor Force Participation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(1), pages 81-88, February.

    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:eee:asieco:v:19:y:2008:i:2:p:138-154. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/asieco .

    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.