The purpose of this study is to support married working women’s right to choose freely when they want to combine work and family and want to give birth to their second child. The purpose of this study is to suggest the practical and policy implicati...
The purpose of this study is to support married working women’s right to choose freely when they want to combine work and family and want to give birth to their second child. The purpose of this study is to suggest the practical and policy implications for society, work, and family by examining work and family related factors affecting married working women' willingness to give birth to a second child and work-family conflict's moderating effect of these relation. In particular, this study used a sequential explanatory model of quantitative research in the preliminary study, followed by qualitative research to gain an in-depth understanding with situational context and to expand upon the results.
In advance, we conducted a quantitative study using logistic regression analysis for married working women with a total sum of 222 children, using data from the 4th and 6th years of the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families. In other words, the influence of factors related to work and family on married women's willingness to give birth to a second child and the moderating effect of work-family conflict of relation to gender discrimination culture in the workplace and willingness to give birth to a second child were analyzed. Based on the quantitative research results, I conducted in-depth interviews with 8 married working women, each with one child as a qualitative case study. Through qualitative case studies, we examined how married working women' work and family environment and experiences were reflected in their desire to have a second child, and how the experiences of work-family conflict in gender discrimination culture in the workplace were reflected in their thought processes and inner willingness towards having a second child.
The quantitative and qualitative research results of this study are summarized as follows. In quantitative research, wages did not have a significant effect on willingness to give birth to a second child. However, qualitative research showed that most married working women hesitate to give birth to a second child because of economic difficulties in the background loom very large. In qualitative research results, we found that background related to wages was reflected in willingness to have a second child.
Second, in quantitative research a family-friendly system provided a positive effect on willingness to give birth to a second child. These results could confirm the following results through qualitative research that the family-friendly policies facilitates the care of the first child in married working women's work and home life, and that the ability to have children while continuing to work without interruption during pregnancy. However, because none of family-friendly policies were provided or even if family-friendly policies were provided, it were not actually available, married women avoided or gave up on having second children.
Third, qualitative research was able to confirm various backgrounds and reasons for the quantitative research finding that husband's share rate of domestic labor affected positively willingness to have a second child. Most married working women were under physical and mental suffering due to their husbands' absolutely small housework share. And because of the social awareness that housework and child-raising should be done by women, they were not recognized by their husbands and suffered even more because they did not receive any financial compensation. If a second child would be born, married working women expected household labor would increase, so they avoided second children.
Fourth, marital satisfaction was positively correlated with the willingness to have a second child in the quantitative research results. However, in the qualitative study, a woman said that if she was satisfied with her present marriage and there was no dangerous situation, and she could expect that future life would be stable and economically spare, and she would not hesitate to give birth to a second child. However, other participants were satisfied with their marriages, but their willingness to give birth to a second child was low in order to avoid the risk of current marriage satisfaction being lowered due to the increase in burden of work-family conflicts.
Fifth, in a result of quantitative research, when work-family conflict was strong, the stronger a gender discrimination culture in the workplace, the lowed willingness to give birth to a second child. Qualitative research confirmed the background of and structural context in which these results were created. Specifically, there was a difficulty in continuing work due to experiencing gender discrimination in terms of working conditions, education, and promotion. Thus, due to the organizational culture of rejecting pregnant women and women who gave children, married working women experienced severe physical and mental difficulties, and these increased and deepened work-family conflict. In addition, due to the gender-segregated labor market, which was reluctant to employ married women with children, and offered only low-quality jobs, they faced the reality of non-reemployment and had to endure their current jobs. These difficulties in the workplace, conflict between work and family were added, and thus the willingness to give birth to a second child was low. On the other hand, because men and women were treated fairly in terms of working conditions, job placement, and promotion in gender equal organizational culture, married working women's working burden appeared small. It was easy to obtain childcare while continuing to work in an organization favorable for working mothers. In this gender equal organizational culture, even if work-family conflict was strong, it was not difficult to give birth to a second child due to just work or a company.
The implications based on the results of this study are as follows. First, interventions are needed to resolve gender inequalities in home. To address gender inequalities in home, there is a need to improve perceptions of gender roles at the individual, family, and social levels.
Second, workers should be provided various kinds of daycare centers, vacation, and flexible work hours in the workplace. In particular, irregular workers, who do not receive family-friendly policies benefits, need to be treated fairly. In addition, a workplace environment in which women can actually use the family-friendly policies provided needs to be established.
Third, economic support is needed for raising the child. Policies supporting childbirth and parenting should be changed to ensure that there is no limit to income and that the period or amount of support is sufficient. In addition, the country needs to expand public education and provide support through various real estate policies for newly married couples and families with children.
Fourth, the government needs to expand the supply of care support facilities and to manage staff numbers for child caregivers. Also, it is necessary to find ways to give priority for the use of childcare facilities to the children of working parents, and actively promote and expand ‘child care support projects’.
Fifth, sexual discrimination against married women with children in the labor market needs to be eliminated. To this end, it is necessary to resolve the problem of women’s irregularization, to provide gender discrimination rules and guidelines, and to improve sense of gender discrimination throughout education and workshops in the workplace.