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Mothers need some time alone…”63% reported feeling more irritable”
Nearly 64.9% of mothers reported they need ‘some time alone’, according to the brief on Childcare during COVID-19 and Mental Health Crisis for Parents prepared by Center for Transnational Migration and Social Inclusion(CTMS) at Seoul National University. Mothers also experienced a considerable change in their mental health condition due to an increased demand for child care at home during the pandemic.
PRESS ㆍ
Invisible Labour Needs to be Accounted for in National Policy
Until recently care and household labor was not reviewed in the economics. Since household labor does not produce a product for trade it was perceived as a difficult type of labor to measure the value. Because of such reason, labor within the private sphere is not included in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rate and full-time house workers were not categorized as laborers. Thus, household labor was known as ‘invisible labor’ or ‘hidden work’. However, recently criticisms pointed out how exclusion of household labor within indexes do not fully represent the reality of our daily lives. For example, when full-time homeworkers provided care labor and get paid for such labor, the value of household labor gets included in the GDP index, thus changing existing statistics. Other critics also point out that household labor has been under valued till this date. Nancy Folbre’s point out that high-quality care labor has a positive effect not only to the care receiver but also to people around them, and that raising an healthy and happy child is like creating a public good, having a positive effect for everyone within the society. Based on such perspectives in 1985 the U.N. announced that women’s unpaid labor should be included in economy statistics of countries. Thus in 2018 Statistics Korea released it’s first measure of “Household Production Account” that included an economic calculation of household labor. According to Statistics Korea, in 2014 24.3% of South Korea’s GDP was accounted for household labor. Dividing into gender, Women produced 3 times more household labor value than men, indicating significant differences between gender in terms of time consumed. As following, South Korea’s government used the term “care economics” within the Social Security Master Plan (2019-2023). The government currently plans to increase market of care labor by supporting employment and accurate pricing of such value. Jiwon Jun, researcher of CTMS viewed that “Measuring the economic value of care labor will help increase women’s status and also add to the supply of more public infrastucture of care labor”.
PRESS ㆍ
Embracing Later Motherhood (2018.08 – 2020.06)
Below is the list of Jiweon Jun’s series, “Embracing Later Motherhood”
COLUMN ㆍ
Gender Inequality in the Division of Childcare and Household Labor
Care policy has focused on supporting the childcare for ‘working mom’. Increasingly, the policy tends to expand to ‘working dad’. Jiweon Jeon, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Transnational Migration and Social Inclusion said, “It should not be a social structure that gives preference only to those with children. If a single person needs to take care of himself or his parents, everyone should be able to take care leave.” Recently, among care researchers, attempts have been made to economically estimate the value of care that has been deemed negligible. The research team of Professor Maria Floro of the American University of the United States revealed the results of tentatively deriving the value of unpaid care work in Korea at $ 360.7 billion in 2009 and $ 390.2 billion in 2014. This figure corresponds to 34% and 28% of Korea’s gross domestic product (GDP), respectively. Prof Floro said at the conference of ”Values of Care Work and Social Inclusion” held at Seoul National University in October of last year, “We need to be able to measure it properly and prove that there is a relationship between public investment in care and job creation, higher productivity and economic growth.” However, there was a comment that it should not be focused solely on the payment of all care work, but a society in which men and women share care work equally is desirable.
PRESS ㆍ
The Care Deficit Imposes Burden on Women Migrants from Developing Countries in Asia
In general, when women’s labor participation increases, care work, including household chores, should be partially done by male members in the family, but care work goes to migrant women care workers. Moreover, if there isn’t enough workforce to replace the caregiver, a new caregiver called the International Marriage Bride would be placed here. The migrant women from Asia, where their economic power is relatively lower than that of Korea, work as housekeepers or caregivers or take care of their parents-in-law and family. Professor Ki Soo Eun of SNU GSIS and Director of Center for Transnational Migration and Social Inclusion said, “Korea is one of the countries with relatively low social expenditure on welfare policies among OECD countries, so families have fulfilled their welfare. Family care work is being forced on migrant women in the name of ‘family duty’ and ‘Chunghyo’”. In the situation that married immigrant women fly to other countries and take care of their parents-in-law, they are not able to take care of their parents properly and not guaranteed the right to care for or receive care from their families.
PRESS ㆍ
Women Migrant Workers Must Take Up Care Work Which Is Given Persistently Low Social Recognition and Valuation
Care workers move across borders for jobs. Ito Peng, a Professor of the University of Toronto, who has studied the care economy and immigrant women in Asian countries such as Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, said, “If the society tries to solve the care gap issue by simply bringing care workers from other countries, it will result in lacking more care workers.” She added, “In many countries such as Korea, China, Taiwan and Singapore, the pay and social status of care workers are very low compared to their professionalism and skill level. In this environment, it is inevitable for domestic people to evade care work continually.” She also pointed out that if the number of immigrant women who fill the care gaps as well as marital immigration is bound to increase, the Korean government must recognize the diversity of social members and create policies for gender equality in care work environment.
PRESS ㆍ
One Paid Caregiver Attends To Five Seniors On Average and Even Up to Twenty Seniors Owing to Understaffing
The Korean government has introduced a long-term care insurance system for the elderly and has continuously expanded nursing facilities and care workers. However, many families still do their care work by themselves despite 10 years-long national effort. The Center for Transnational Migration and Social Inclusion and Gallup Korea surveyed 500 elderly caring families. 66.8% of respondents answered “No” to the question, “Are you using government-provided or private caring services in the last month?” Why? The cause is under the poor working environment where quality care is not possible. The fact that care workers are barely working in a harsh environment means that it is challenging to provide quality care to the caregivers. Experts say in common that the government must be more involved in the operation of nursing home care to stabilize the employment of caregivers and raise lower labor costs. In a broad framework, it is necessary to raise awareness of caring for society as a whole. Dr. Jeon Ji-won said, “It is necessary to recognize the national cost of caring as an ‘investment’ that cultivates social competitiveness as well as education. She thinks it will have a significant impact on national competitiveness.
PRESS ㆍ
The Responsibilities of Family Eldercare Fall Wholly Upon Women
According to the research conducted by Center for Transnational Migration and Social Inclusion, 85% of caregivers for the elderly were women. It is fact that “female” rather than the eldest son or parent-child has played a major role in becoming a primary caregiver. Dr. Hyuna Moon, who conducted the research, said “Our society has never agreed on who should be responsible for caring in the family, but the social perception that caring is women’s work strongly affects within the family, so women are dedicated to caring for the elderly.” From the other in-depth interviews, it can be seen that elderly care was a heavy burden to carry alone for a caregiver. Dr. Moon said, “The government-funded care service hours need to be expanded much more than now and this is not just a way to ease the intensity of family care work”. In terms of the fact that interviewed careworkers have pride in their works by considering that their care work is valuable and professional, care is more effective as being done by a third party, not the family. She argued that the social atmosphere in which intimacy is formed only by kinship must be changed so that socialization of care will take place and the government will take more responsibility for the care issue.
PRESS ㆍ
Interview with Kavita Ramdas: Post-“Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982” South Korea Will Hold Keys to Resolving the Care Crisis and Gender Inequality
On October 28, Kavita R. Ramdas, a global woman activist visited at Seoul National University(SNU). She joined the Open Society Foundation in August last year as the director of the Women’s Rights program and sponsored the Center for Transnational Migration and Social Inclusion under SNU in terms of working for an activity to regain rights to women’s bodies, care issue and various women’s movements. She thinks Korea can lead the care issue through working with Korean sociologists and economists. She shared the thoughts by saying “As seen in ‘Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982’, gender equality, aging and low birth rates cannot be solved without solving the care problems. Whenever I meet Korean women, I see them struggling with the problems of caring for their children and old parents. This is a crisis, and a crisis is an opportunity. The solution that Korea has found can be extended to the world.” She believes that gender conflict can eventually find a solution to understanding the other person. “If you accept this, you will soon realize that men are not women who hate or hostile, but who we are born,” she added. And she left the last message to the youth “I want you to keep in mind that the most necessary tool for men and women together to create a better world is tools with compassion.”
Interviews ㆍ
Mothers need some time alone…”63% reported feeling more irritable”
Nearly 64.9% of mothers reported they need ‘some time alone’, according to the brief on Childcare during COVID-19 and Mental Health Crisis for Parents prepared by Center for Transnational Migration and Social Inclusion(CTMS) at Seoul National University. Mothers also experienced a considerable change in their mental health condition due to an increased demand for child care at home during the pandemic.
PRESS ㆍ
Invisible Labour Needs to be Accounted for in National Policy
Until recently care and household labor was not reviewed in the economics. Since household labor does not produce a product for trade it was perceived as a difficult type of labor to measure the value. Because of such reason, labor within the private sphere is not included in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rate and full-time house workers were not categorized as laborers. Thus, household labor was known as ‘invisible labor’ or ‘hidden work’. However, recently criticisms pointed out how exclusion of household labor within indexes do not fully represent the reality of our daily lives. For example, when full-time homeworkers provided care labor and get paid for such labor, the value of household labor gets included in the GDP index, thus changing existing statistics. Other critics also point out that household labor has been under valued till this date. Nancy Folbre’s point out that high-quality care labor has a positive effect not only to the care receiver but also to people around them, and that raising an healthy and happy child is like creating a public good, having a positive effect for everyone within the society. Based on such perspectives in 1985 the U.N. announced that women’s unpaid labor should be included in economy statistics of countries. Thus in 2018 Statistics Korea released it’s first measure of “Household Production Account” that included an economic calculation of household labor. According to Statistics Korea, in 2014 24.3% of South Korea’s GDP was accounted for household labor. Dividing into gender, Women produced 3 times more household labor value than men, indicating significant differences between gender in terms of time consumed. As following, South Korea’s government used the term “care economics” within the Social Security Master Plan (2019-2023). The government currently plans to increase market of care labor by supporting employment and accurate pricing of such value. Jiwon Jun, researcher of CTMS viewed that “Measuring the economic value of care labor will help increase women’s status and also add to the supply of more public infrastucture of care labor”.
PRESS ㆍ
Embracing Later Motherhood (2018.08 – 2020.06)
Below is the list of Jiweon Jun’s series, “Embracing Later Motherhood”
COLUMN ㆍ
Gender Inequality in the Division of Childcare and Household Labor
Care policy has focused on supporting the childcare for ‘working mom’. Increasingly, the policy tends to expand to ‘working dad’. Jiweon Jeon, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Transnational Migration and Social Inclusion said, “It should not be a social structure that gives preference only to those with children. If a single person needs to take care of himself or his parents, everyone should be able to take care leave.” Recently, among care researchers, attempts have been made to economically estimate the value of care that has been deemed negligible. The research team of Professor Maria Floro of the American University of the United States revealed the results of tentatively deriving the value of unpaid care work in Korea at $ 360.7 billion in 2009 and $ 390.2 billion in 2014. This figure corresponds to 34% and 28% of Korea’s gross domestic product (GDP), respectively. Prof Floro said at the conference of ”Values of Care Work and Social Inclusion” held at Seoul National University in October of last year, “We need to be able to measure it properly and prove that there is a relationship between public investment in care and job creation, higher productivity and economic growth.” However, there was a comment that it should not be focused solely on the payment of all care work, but a society in which men and women share care work equally is desirable.
PRESS ㆍ
The Care Deficit Imposes Burden on Women Migrants from Developing Countries in Asia
In general, when women’s labor participation increases, care work, including household chores, should be partially done by male members in the family, but care work goes to migrant women care workers. Moreover, if there isn’t enough workforce to replace the caregiver, a new caregiver called the International Marriage Bride would be placed here. The migrant women from Asia, where their economic power is relatively lower than that of Korea, work as housekeepers or caregivers or take care of their parents-in-law and family. Professor Ki Soo Eun of SNU GSIS and Director of Center for Transnational Migration and Social Inclusion said, “Korea is one of the countries with relatively low social expenditure on welfare policies among OECD countries, so families have fulfilled their welfare. Family care work is being forced on migrant women in the name of ‘family duty’ and ‘Chunghyo’”. In the situation that married immigrant women fly to other countries and take care of their parents-in-law, they are not able to take care of their parents properly and not guaranteed the right to care for or receive care from their families.
PRESS ㆍ
Women Migrant Workers Must Take Up Care Work Which Is Given Persistently Low Social Recognition and Valuation
Care workers move across borders for jobs. Ito Peng, a Professor of the University of Toronto, who has studied the care economy and immigrant women in Asian countries such as Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, said, “If the society tries to solve the care gap issue by simply bringing care workers from other countries, it will result in lacking more care workers.” She added, “In many countries such as Korea, China, Taiwan and Singapore, the pay and social status of care workers are very low compared to their professionalism and skill level. In this environment, it is inevitable for domestic people to evade care work continually.” She also pointed out that if the number of immigrant women who fill the care gaps as well as marital immigration is bound to increase, the Korean government must recognize the diversity of social members and create policies for gender equality in care work environment.
PRESS ㆍ
One Paid Caregiver Attends To Five Seniors On Average and Even Up to Twenty Seniors Owing to Understaffing
The Korean government has introduced a long-term care insurance system for the elderly and has continuously expanded nursing facilities and care workers. However, many families still do their care work by themselves despite 10 years-long national effort. The Center for Transnational Migration and Social Inclusion and Gallup Korea surveyed 500 elderly caring families. 66.8% of respondents answered “No” to the question, “Are you using government-provided or private caring services in the last month?” Why? The cause is under the poor working environment where quality care is not possible. The fact that care workers are barely working in a harsh environment means that it is challenging to provide quality care to the caregivers. Experts say in common that the government must be more involved in the operation of nursing home care to stabilize the employment of caregivers and raise lower labor costs. In a broad framework, it is necessary to raise awareness of caring for society as a whole. Dr. Jeon Ji-won said, “It is necessary to recognize the national cost of caring as an ‘investment’ that cultivates social competitiveness as well as education. She thinks it will have a significant impact on national competitiveness.
PRESS ㆍ
The Responsibilities of Family Eldercare Fall Wholly Upon Women
According to the research conducted by Center for Transnational Migration and Social Inclusion, 85% of caregivers for the elderly were women. It is fact that “female” rather than the eldest son or parent-child has played a major role in becoming a primary caregiver. Dr. Hyuna Moon, who conducted the research, said “Our society has never agreed on who should be responsible for caring in the family, but the social perception that caring is women’s work strongly affects within the family, so women are dedicated to caring for the elderly.” From the other in-depth interviews, it can be seen that elderly care was a heavy burden to carry alone for a caregiver. Dr. Moon said, “The government-funded care service hours need to be expanded much more than now and this is not just a way to ease the intensity of family care work”. In terms of the fact that interviewed careworkers have pride in their works by considering that their care work is valuable and professional, care is more effective as being done by a third party, not the family. She argued that the social atmosphere in which intimacy is formed only by kinship must be changed so that socialization of care will take place and the government will take more responsibility for the care issue.
PRESS ㆍ
Interview with Kavita Ramdas: Post-“Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982” South Korea Will Hold Keys to Resolving the Care Crisis and Gender Inequality
On October 28, Kavita R. Ramdas, a global woman activist visited at Seoul National University(SNU). She joined the Open Society Foundation in August last year as the director of the Women’s Rights program and sponsored the Center for Transnational Migration and Social Inclusion under SNU in terms of working for an activity to regain rights to women’s bodies, care issue and various women’s movements. She thinks Korea can lead the care issue through working with Korean sociologists and economists. She shared the thoughts by saying “As seen in ‘Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982’, gender equality, aging and low birth rates cannot be solved without solving the care problems. Whenever I meet Korean women, I see them struggling with the problems of caring for their children and old parents. This is a crisis, and a crisis is an opportunity. The solution that Korea has found can be extended to the world.” She believes that gender conflict can eventually find a solution to understanding the other person. “If you accept this, you will soon realize that men are not women who hate or hostile, but who we are born,” she added. And she left the last message to the youth “I want you to keep in mind that the most necessary tool for men and women together to create a better world is tools with compassion.”
Interviews ㆍ