Half of women find return to work short-lived

People are seen commuting to work in Jongno-gu, central Seoul, Jan. 2. (Yonhap)

Many of the women residing in Seoul whose careers have been interrupted by family-related issues tend to sustain a job for less than two years after returning to work, a report by a city-run foundation found Monday.

The Seoul Foundation of Women & Family recently surveyed 1,200 women whose careers were interrupted between the ages of 25 and 54 currently living in South Korea's capital. A goal of the study was to figure out the average length of time women whose post-interruption careers were cut off for the second time -- the figure for which amounted to 577 or nearly half those surveyed -- worked. South Korean law defines women whose careers were interrupted as those whose economic activities stopped due to marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, care for a family member or other similar reasons.

The study concluded that on average, the post-interruption careers of these 577 women lasted only 23.9 months, compared to the 50.2-month duration of their pre-interruption careers.

The study also showed that after a career interruption, a lower percentage of women were working in what is called "regular" jobs in the South Korean labor market. Excluding a minority of self-employed, 1,135 of the respondents were wage employees.

In South Korea's labor market, the "regular" job refers to a system that guarantees employment for a worker until the legal retirement age, given that the employee in question has not committed serious crime or a grave violation of company policy.

Prior to their career interruptions, 70 percent of those 1,135 female wage employees had regular jobs with such job security while the rest were contract workers, hired by contract for a certain period of time. But after their career interruptions, only 51.7 percent of the female wage employees held regular jobs.

The female wage employees received an average of 2.1 million won ($1,600) before their careers were interrupted, but the figure dropped to 1.8 million afterwards.

Researchers said that the Seoul Metropolitan Government needs a system that will prepare women to re-enter the labor market after their careers have been interrupted, stressing the need for policies and further analysis of why the women on average work for such a short period of time after they return to work.

South Korea has been working to ensure that women whose careers have been interrupted for maternity leave, childbirth, childcare, family care or related family reasons are fully able to return to the labor market, enacting the Act on Promotion of Economic Activities of Career-Interrupted Women in 2008.

Last month, a Statistics Korea report showed that 25.2 percent of the women born in 1983 lost their jobs after giving birth, leaving the labor market completely. Only 40.5 percent of the women in that age group were able to work both before and after childbirth.

In contrast, 92.9 percent of the male population had jobs before and after the birth of their child.

By Yoon Min-sik(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)