Working-mom syndrome hits S. Korea

Working-mom syndrome hits S. Korea

Cho Mee-young, Seoul, Reuters

Choi Kun-ju is a promising bank worker with almost 10 years experience. She works late on most days and is studying for extra qualifications.

Yet, as busy as she is, Choi keeps one regular slot in her diary free.

Every Saturday, she drives almost three hours through heavy traffic and along mountain roads from Seoul to the northeastern town of Chunchon to see her baby, who lives with her mother.

Choi is just one of many South Korean working mothers who need baby-sitters. She, at least, has someone she can trust. "I feel sorry for my parents," she says, but feels that she had no choice.

South Korea, Asia's third-largest economy, considers the rising number of qualified female workers an important contributor to its rebounding economy. Yet the percentage of college-educated women in the workforce is still relatively low.

The figure for South Korea is 54 percent, against an average of 83 percent among fellow members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

"To enter the ranks of developed countries, the female work force should increase to more than 80 percent," Han Myung-sook, the minister for gender equality, told Reuters.

South Korea saw its birth rate per woman fall to 1.47 in 2000 from 1.74 in 1991. To try to boost the female work force, South Korea last year extended maternity leave from 60 to 90 days.

It also introduced a one-year leave of absence for those with a baby below one year old, paying about $150 per month in state benefits.

Few working mothers have taken up that offer, and civic groups say $150 a month is plainly not enough. Those who do take the leave see trouble ahead.

"I worry about asking others again to take care of my kids later (when I go back to work)," says Lee Kyoung-shin, a school teacher and mother of two who opted to take the leave.

Women find it easier to get a job than a generation ago, but a male-dominated society and traditional Confucian hierarchy mean it is still often tougher for women to win jobs, even if they are better qualified or more capable than competing men.

In addition, since the Asian financial crisis in late 1997, it has become far harder for Korean women to get or keep a job.

The number of employed women stood at 8.9 million in 2001, an increase of almost 60 percent over the previous 20 years, National Statistical Office data showed.

That was well below the number of employed men -- 12.5 million -- even though the number of men and women in the total population of 48 million is roughly equal.

In 1998, in the fall-out from the Asian financial crisis, the number of employed women fell by around 600,000 to about eight million, while the number of employed men fell proportionately less -- by 500,000 to almost 12 million, figures showed.

Pack Hae-jeen, a mother of two and a senior bank worker, resigned in 1998 because her South Korean financial company employer made all female workers contractors.

Compared with full-time workers, contractors usually have fewer benefits, lower pay and less job security.

Pack returned to work last year, this time to a foreign bank.

"I never considered Korean financial companies because they don't hire housewives and, if they do, they hire only on contract terms," she says.

In a survey of South Korea's top 100 companies by turnover, 58 percent said the service length of female workers was less than half that of male workers.

Employment experts say the government and companies should share the burden of raising children with working mothers.

"Public nursery schools should increase, while most depend upon the private. Private education costs are high," says Kim Hye-kyoung, who heads Seoul's Child Care Information Center.

While 1.34 million children up to the age of five needed baby- sitters as of early last year, government data showed the 20,000 local daycare centers catered for barely half that number.

The remainder were cared for by private baby-sitters, neighbors or relatives, often the children's grandmothers.

Private centers charge slightly more than public ones at about $120 a month. A full-time baby-sitter costs $1,200 a month.

Many working mothers say cost is not the main factor -- as long as they can keep their jobs and their babies are well.

Park Young-yi did not mind paying some $1,200 per month to a private baby-sitter who lived with her because she could not find a family member to do it and her long working hours did not fit into daycare centers' schedules -- a common problem.

But last month Park quit because her baby became unsettled and restless after she was obliged to change her baby-sitters.

"Kids get sick and sometimes become autistic because of insecurity if baby-sitters change a lot at home or nursery," says Shin Yee-jin, a professor of psychiatry at a medical college.

Shin says a third of her new patients had such problems, and women like Choi are worried about their ability to balance work and family.

"For the next four years, I will not have a second child," Choi says. "If I have another baby, I will give up my job because I cannot ask my parents again."