Korea's gender dilemma

By Bernard Rowan

Several recent stories about women, marriage and inequality prompted me to write about Korea's gender problem. I want us to focus on what happens to women to gauge what isn't happening in marriage, family and society.

In some ways, it remains a tale of the best of times and the worst of times. Korean women have possibilities their grandmothers and mothers couldn't dream about. More women today finish university and graduate school. We have Korea's first woman president. There are women CEOs, popular girl bands, models and performers, and more women working than in previous decades. Korean parents of young women today can have the same expectations they've held for their sons in the past.

These conditions and expectations work to benefit present and future upper- and middle-class women, the "samonim" and "jubu." However, for working women, for the "ajumma," this new world doesn't include them.

Wage inequality remains prevalent. Many women don't take advantage of maternity leave for fear of losing their jobs. Many women interrupt work to have children but find no job waiting when they return. Too few female lawmakers and corporate leaders have too little power to push reforms alone. The rank and file of most professions earn less than their male counterparts. Single victories in the professions a sea change do not make.

Last week Statistics Korea pointed out that fewer people married in Korea last year, continuing a trend that gives many concern. The standard line credits this dip to a decreasing population of marriage-age Koreans (because of lower birthrate) and fewer Koreans marrying foreigners. This second metric strikes me as odd or manufactured as far as a cause of fewer marriages.

Fewer marriage-age men and women marry today. More men and women delay marriage. Couples have fewer children. All of this raises a great many issues, not new, for Korean society today and tomorrow. Fewer working age Koreans will have to support older Koreans that are living longer. But there isn't much social support.

Among the middle and upper classes, advancement has created a standoff between traditional patterns of early age and family life and personal development. Women want and increasingly have careers, just like their prospective partners. There is no particular need, let alone hurry, to marry an individual who has means of income and a professional life.

Statistics Korea also said that nearly 10 percent of Korean adults have never married, a rising number. Women and men in Korea today like to live single for longer periods of time, or indefinitely. That's not bad. However, living as an individual doesn't necessarily promote better gender relations. The single life needn't correlate with a revaluation of inequality.

Working-class women continue to struggle on. Their double and triple burdens escape notice. Inadequate wages, inadequate access to childcare and workforce training, and lingering discrimination by society cost billions. These women don't go to college or graduate school and haven't many prospects.

I don't think Korea needs "policies to encourage marriage," "policies to encourage Koreans marrying foreigners" or "policies to encourage Koreans to have children." These might or might not be good ideas, but they won't solve the underlying problem of gender relations.

Korea continues to lag behind other less advanced countries in gender equality, ranking 117th. The World Economic Forum index measures the numbers of women who work outside the home and unequal pay for equal work. It also measures childcare availability, enforcement of anti-discrimination legislation, and political representation. The Korean score reflects lingering social and political attitudes and behaviors that view women as complements to men.

The gender problem continues because women and men don't accept partnership as equals. Images of bygone ideals carry forward harmful myths of princes and princesses, of riches galore, of bonding families to the core. The stay-at-home alternative harms both partners. They must stress themselves to leave work and other activities and spend time with children.

It needs saying that concentrating wealth in fewer families also works against developing gender equality and harmony. We'd need to admit the traditional family itself amounts to something of a luxury good. With more men and women working, wanting to work, deserving to work, and needing to work, there's less time than ever for family life, unless men reverse roles.

Among better-off Koreans, this reality escapes notice. We're too busy and self-satisfied perhaps. Among the rest of Koreans, there is no time to fix gender relations. Tradition holds greater sway when there is no leisure to imagine and act in new ways.

Men and women in Korea haven't changed the idea of family harmony to match economic and educational advancement. I think Koreans and people of many nations must disregard the typical preoccupation with distant tales of past family patterns, and of new and luxurious media images. The current gender standoff that surrounds us implies that individualism and an extended single life are solutions; the fallback for working women is a greater struggle, period. Korea and Koreans will need to do better.

Bernard Rowan is assistant provost for curriculum and assessment, professor of political science and faculty athletics representative at Chicago State University, where he has served for 22 years. Write him at browan10@yahoo.com.