What is it about?
This article aims to uncover working mothers’ experiences in relation to intergenerational exchange of care and support in South Korea. It examines the impact of Confucian gender ideology on the operation of intergenerational reciprocity within the Korean family. It draws on qualitative semi-structured interviews with 30 married women in paid employment in Seoul, Korea, carried out in 2014.
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Why is it important?
With the growing number of working mothers in South Korea, family support with care has come to the fore (KOSIS, 2012), as it is likely to be women providing care and hands-on services for family members. Therefore, the notion of intergenerational exchange of support flowing between working mothers and their mothers/mothers-in-law and how the care exchange is reciprocated in practice becomes a crucial issue to explore. This article argues that the Confucian hierarchical principles of a son’s role as the provider for older parents continue to prevail. Thus, in practice, traditional gender expectations of married women’s responsibility for parents-in-law persist regarding intergenerational reciprocity, despite recent development of policies for care.
Perspectives
I hope this article will give insight on intergenerational exchange of care in South Korea from a gender perspective.
Sirin Sung
Queen's University Belfast
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Gender, work and care in policy and practice: Working mothers’ experience of intergenerational exchange of care in South Korea, Critical Social Policy, December 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0261018317746042.
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