The gap between fantasy and reality

When these cases are common, the fantasy drama about working women won’t be so interesting anymore.

BAEK Il-HYUNThe author is an industrial news reporter of the JoongAng Ilbo. Last year, I got a call from a woman executive of a large company. Although we met only once, she said, “Thank you for writing a good article.” It was shortly after publishing an article that the proportion of women executives at large Korean companies was only 6.3 percent and the talent pool was small, when foreign companies have a much higher ratio, 23 percent for Apple, for instance.

I was curious about what she had gone through before and after being promoted to the executive position. But as I was on the move, I told her to get back later. Shortly after the conversion, I was told that she left the position.

I got acquainted with another working woman three months ago. She is a rare case of becoming a manager at one of the top 10 companies after a career gap. She quit her job to have a child and stayed home, and returned to work through a reemployment program offered by some companies.

But some of her coworkers who joined the company with her left for various reasons. She said that there were very few juniors with a career gap after the reemployment program she took advantage of ended soon.

I brought up these stories because several dramas featuring working women are airing these days. “Doctor Cha” is about a 46-year-old woman who has lived as a wife of a college professor and a daughter-in-law of a wealthy family and resumed the career she had given up to raise children for 20 years.

“Pale Moon” features a rich man’s wife who finds a job at a bank after enduring a suffocating lifestyle. “Queenmaker” is about the transformation of a woman executive at a major enterprise managing the risks of the owner’s family. Just in time for the Family Month of May, these stories are about the self-searching journeys of women.

As dramas reflect the desires of the time, they make me think about women I met at work and in society. I hope it is not just a fantasy that the women who had been underappreciated get to work alongside her husband and son and triumph, win the hearts of VIP customers and get recognized as a genius in the field.

In reality, however, working women are struggling because they have to go to work when schools are closed for the children during the long weekend. Just around the time the women rise up to a certain position, they get pushed out due to their problems with networking or corporate politics. During the economic downturn, women are more likely to be mentioned in the layoff list.

There should be more success stories of working women and women returning to work from the career gap in order to overcome the era of the total fertility rate of 0.78. Some say that women with a career gap should be called “women with career experience.”

LG Display offers flexible hours for childcare, and Lotte offers mandatory parental leave for men. These cases should not be limited to a few large companies. When these cases are common, the fantasy drama about working women won’t be so interesting anymore.