In this essay, the author 부산 고구려 compares and contrasts the part-time work opportunities available to women in Japan and Korea. In comparison to women in other OECD countries, the income disparity between men and women in Japan is far worse, and Japanese women also face a greater threat of having their part-time occupations automated.
Any job that needs less than 30 hours of work per week is considered to be part-time employment in Japan. Moreover, part-time jobs in Japan often do not provide benefits such as health insurance or savings for retirement. In 2019, just 11.7% of employed women worked part-time employment, compared to 8.2% of employed males. Nevertheless, in Korea, these statistics were much higher: 44.2% for women and 71.4% for men.
This is as a result of the fact that in Japan, over the course of the last few years, there has been an increase in the number of women who are older people who are employed, with more women being joined to the labor force. In Japan, the pace of a rapidly aging population has also been growing, and as a result, a bigger share of the working population is comprised of women who are at least 65 years old. In addition to this, Japan’s low birth rates have produced cutbacks in its labor force as a result of fewer young people entering it. This is because fewer individuals are having children. This indicates that employees from other countries are increasingly taking on jobs in order to fill the void left by workers who have relocated to Japan.
Because of this, there has been a significant rise in the number of part-time employment available to women in Japan. The situation is similar in South Korea, where there is a low fertility rate and where work opportunities for young males are becoming worse. It has been hypothesized that the costs associated with job instability are linked to declining marriage and birth rates as well as fertility rates. These changes may also be driven by low salaries resulting from part-time employment. This is a particularly concerning factor since insecurity is exacerbated when wages are low. During the last several decades, the proportion of working-age women in affluent Asian nations like Japan and South Korea has climbed significantly. Academics such as Suzuki (2013) and Matsuda have conducted research on how people in various countries feel about working part-time jobs (2013).
Their research has demonstrated that the sorts of part-time occupations that are available to women in Japan and Korea are very different from one another. In Korea, the highest gender disparities in labor force participation are shown among female managers and positions involving risk, while in Japan, same gaps are seen among occupations such as sales and high skill jobs. In Korea, the gender disparity in labor force participation is less overall. In addition, as compared to Korea, the percentage of women working in service professions and clerical occupations is much higher in Japan than it is in Korea. In comparison to Korea, where a greater share of the workforce is comprised of temporary workers, Japan has a higher ratio of workers who are employed on a full-time basis. This might be because dependent employment occupations are more prevalent in Korea than they are in Japan. Japan has a higher proportion of independent workers. The prevalence of women working part-time also varies across the two nations. In Korea, women are more likely to choose part-time job over full-time work, which contributes to a wider gender disparity in the labor force participation rates of men and women.
Part-time employees in Japan make far higher salaries than their Korean counterparts, but their schedules are much more predictable. This is partly attributable to the frequency of occupations requiring low levels of competence in Korea as well as the dependence of the economy on temporary labour. After the bursting of its bubble economy in the 1990s, Japan has experienced an increase in regular employment, whereas Korea has seen an increase in part-time labor, as reported by the nations that make up the OECD and its figures on job growth. As a direct consequence of this, women in Korea are often paid less than males in comparable occupations, but Japanese women frequently have access to employment requiring greater levels of expertise and more consistent working hours.
There is a substantial gap in the part-time work opportunities available to women in Japan and Korea. There has been a rise in the number of young people without jobs in Korea, which has contributed to the country’s experiencing economic losses due to inconsistent wages and falling salaries. Women with advanced degrees often have difficulty finding full-time work, so they are forced to settle for part-time jobs that provide less security in their finances. Part-time jobs in Japan are often filled by women with previous work experience or children who need to balance their school or extracurricular activities with their employment. These positions often provide more consistent compensation than those in Korea, and the growing percentage of the population that they represent remains a challenge for those looking for full-time employment. In spite of the differences in the options available to them in their respective nations, many women in both Korea and Japan struggle financially because they are more likely to have part-time employment rather than full-time positions with consistent salary.
In both nations, college-educated women who have completed their degrees will find that part-time work offers the best opportunities for employment. Yet, since Japanese women have a higher literacy rate than South Korean women, childless women in Japan have a lower salary difference than childless women in South Korea. Because of this, many Japanese women are able to get full-time employment despite having a lower level of experience than males in comparable positions. In addition, Japanese women have a better likelihood of obtaining management and professional jobs than their Korean counterparts do because Japanese women have a higher average reading level than Korean women. Nevertheless, there is only the option of obligatory schooling in South Korea, and as a result, many South Korean female employees have lesser reading skills than their Japanese counterparts.
This has resulted in a whole female labor force that is typically less competent than that of Japan, which has contributed to a reduction in the number of opportunities available. As a consequence of this, a great number of South Korean women have either chosen to leave their occupations or have been driven out of their positions as a result of the low reproduction rate and the inclination for families to place a great number of women in childcare facilities or other similar services. As a result of the baby strike, there are now a disproportionately large number of women in their 30s working in South Korea, in comparison to Japan, where the numbers are more fairly distributed.
In Korea, many professional women choose to give up their careers when they reach their 30s so that they may devote their time and energy to raising their families rather than putting in long hours at the office. Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Maternity Leave are two examples of regulations that the Japanese government has enacted in an effort to encourage working mothers to remain in the workforce. In spite of these efforts, the percentage of Japanese women who hold executive positions is still lower than the percentage held by males. In addition to this, even when they leave the employment, women continue to earn less money than men do. This disparity may be attributed to the differing attitudes that Korean and Japanese women have on the importance of careers and marriage.
Both the amount of time that Japanese women spend working and the amount of money that they bring in are lower than that of their male counterparts. In addition, it is common for Japanese women to be excluded from workplace customs such as mingling with colleagues after work or having drinks with them. Because of this, there is an unspoken disparity in salary between them and their male colleagues. In other OECD nations, the gender disparity is substantially narrower; nevertheless, in Japan, males only put in 41 minutes of unpaid work such as home chores and childcare, while women put in 3 hours. Other OECD countries have a much narrower gender gap. The gender wage disparity in South Korea is comparable to that in other nations, with the exception of South Korea, where men work longer hours and have a greater number of business connections.