Visitors tour exhibition booths at the COEX Convention Center in Samseong-dong, Gangnam District, Seoul, during the COEX Baby Fair. (Yonhap)
SEJONG, Jan. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — The Covid-19 pandemic sharply curtailed the economic participation of mothers with young children in South Korea, as caregiving responsibilities fell disproportionately on women during the public health crisis, according to a new academic study.
The findings underscore the persistence of gendered caregiving roles despite the normalization of dual-income households and years of policy efforts aimed at improving work-life balance, researchers said.
In a paper published this month by the Korean Public Finance Association, a team of researchers from the Korea Development Institute, the Korean Women’s Development Institute and Myongji University analyzed household survey data covering families with children aged 0 to 7.
They examined how regional Covid-19 infection rates affected parental labor supply during the pandemic.
The study found that for every additional Covid-19 case per 1,000 residents, mothers’ labor force participation fell by 2.02 percentage points, while their weekly working hours declined by 2.49 percent.
Fathers, by contrast, saw no statistically meaningful change in labor force participation or working hours, with employment probability slipping by just 0.66 percentage points.
The divergence highlights how caregiving and breadwinning roles remained sharply divided by gender, even as families faced the same external shock.
2024 COBE Baby Fair (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
The employment impact on mothers varied by job type. Women in occupations that allowed remote work experienced a modest reduction in working hours, suggesting they adjusted schedules to absorb childcare duties.
Mothers in jobs that could not be performed remotely, however, saw both labor force participation and employment rates drop by more than three percentage points, indicating that caregiving gaps translated directly into labor market exit.
Researchers attributed the disparity primarily to the collapse of childcare services during the pandemic, as daycare centers and kindergartens closed or limited operations.
While fathers maintained labor force participation rates above 90 percent regardless of infection levels, mothers’ employment declined sharply in areas with higher case counts.
Notably, many mothers did not transition into temporary leave or job search but instead exited the labor market altogether, reinforcing concerns about the long-term career costs of caregiving interruptions.
“The pandemic once again revealed that childcare remains a major constraint on mothers’ participation in the labor market,” the authors wrote, calling for policies that both ease the caregiving burden on women and promote greater involvement by fathers in childrearing.
The study adds to growing evidence that crisis-driven care shocks can deepen existing gender gaps in employment, with implications for labor supply, income inequality and long-term demographic challenges in South Korea.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
