“Biggest Reason for Women’s Career Discontinuity Is Marriage”…FKI Report

Korean married women are 37.8 percent more likely to pull themselves out of the labor market than those not married. (image: kobizmedia)

SEOUL, Korea, Mar 3 (Korea Bizwire) – A study said the biggest reason for women to quit being part of the economically active population was marriage. Up until now, the main reason for women’s career discontinuity was childrearing. A

ccording to a report “How to Raise Women Employment Ratio” published by the Federation of Korean Industries on March 2, married women are 37.8 percent more likely to pull themselves out of the labor market than those not married. The report’s author is Min Se-jin, economics professor at Dongkuk University. As for women who have children younger than 15 years of age, the probability was only 2.9 percent higher than those with no child.

This is remarkable given that marriage is 13 times more important than children for women’s decision to stay home. For those women who are family heads, the probability was 23.9 percent higher than those who are not. For those women in their 20s, as they get older, the chances of joining the labor market become also higher by 68.4 percent. That’s probably because the women who graduate from colleges or graduate schools in their mid- and late 20s start getting jobs.

Meanwhile, educational attainment had little to do with the possibility of remaining in the labor market. The chances of women with higher levels of education participating in the labor market are only 0.05 percent higher than those for women with lower educational levels. The women who are divorced or bereaved were 37.3 percent less likely to be economically active than those who are not, which is counterintuitive given divorced women and widows are considered to have more incentive to actively pursue to get a job.

Lee Cheol-haeng, Federation of Korean Industries manager in charge of labor and employment affairs, said, “Currently the government is focusing on assisting women with children as a measure to prevent women’s career discontinuity. But it must at the same time pay attention to women who are ready for marriage and discourage them to quit their job.”

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