Ⅰ. Purpose of Study
With the recent rapid change in social condition and situation, the percentage of women in the labor market is getting higher gradually. In general, Korean women enter into the labor market and withdraw from it for marriage, chil...
Ⅰ. Purpose of Study
With the recent rapid change in social condition and situation, the percentage of women in the labor market is getting higher gradually. In general, Korean women enter into the labor market and withdraw from it for marriage, childbirth and child rearing and then re-enter after their children have grown up. Women who have career interruption are faced with various career barriers including restriction in qualification for employment, poor employment condition, lack of support for child rearing and fixed idea on gender role. In addition, several irrational beliefs that women with career interruption have on occupational re-entry are also important factors that hinder their employment. Thus, assuming that irrational beliefs, which are internal-psychological aspects contrary to external career barriers, are important factors hindering women's employment, the present study purposed to analyze irrational beliefs in women and differences in such beliefs according to women's personal vocational characteristics and to provide basic materials for effective employment counseling for women.
Ⅱ. Method of Study
The subjects of this study were married women who wanted occupational re-entry. A total of 670 questionnaires were distributed and 627 were recovered. Excluding 51 questionnaires that were answered inappropriately, we analyzed a total of 576 questionnaires.
The survey tool used in this research was developed by the researcher referring to "A Questionnaire on Personal Beliefs" developed by Park Jae-hwang (1981). The questionnaire was composed of questions to identify over-self-conviction type, limited judgment type and under-self-conviction type. According to the result of factor analysis of each type, three factors- high self-expectations, demand for approval and perfection-from over-self-conviction type, two factors-thoughtless expectation and self-excuse - from limited judgment type, and four factors - problem avoidance, anxious over-concern and frustration, over-dependency and over-concern about others - from under-self-conviction type.
Collected data were processed using SPSS 10.0 for Windows, and research problems were solved through factor analysis, reliability analysis, one-way ANOVA and correlation analysis.
Ⅲ. Results
Results obtained through these procedures are as follows.
First, irrational beliefs were different according to occupational re-entry women's personal characteristics. Differences in irrational beliefs according to age were observed in high self-expectations, demand for approval, self-excuse and over-concern about others, and according to academic qualification in high self-expectations, thoughtless expectation, and anxious over-concern and frustration.
Second, irrational beliefs were different according to occupational re-entry women's vocational characteristics. Differences in irrational belief according to the length of career interruption were observed in high self-expectations, self-excuse, problem avoidance, anxious over-concern and frustration, over-dependency, and over-concern about others, and according to the length of service at the previous job in thoughtless expectation and self-excuse. In addition, differences in irrational beliefs according to the category of the previous job were observed in high self-expectations and thoughtless expectation, and according to the category of desired job in high self-expectations, and anxious over-concern and frustration.
Third, the type of irrational belief was different according to occupational re-entry women's personal characteristics. By age, over-self-conviction type appeared more frequently in younger women, and limited judgment type did in older women. Under-self-conviction type appeared most frequently in women in their 30s. By academic qualification, over-self-conviction type appeared more frequently in women with high academic qualification and limited judgment type did in those with low academic qualification.
Fourth, the type of irrational belief was different according to occupational re-entry women's vocational characteristics. Significant differences were observed in limited judgment type and under-self-conviction type according to the length of career interruption, and under-self-conviction type was more frequent in those with long career interruption. In addition, according to the category of the previous job, limited judgment type was most frequent in those with experience in manufacturing and least frequent in those who had been specialists. No difference in the type of irrational belief was observed according to the length of service at the previous job and according to the category of desired job.
Fifth, positive correlations were observed among the sub-factors of irrational beliefs. This suggests that irrational beliefs are not independent from one another and an irrational belief appears in connection to other irrational beliefs or affect them.
The present study proved that irrational beliefs perceived by women hoping occupational re-entry were different according to their personal characteristics and vocational characteristics, and the type of irrational beliefs was different according to personal characteristics and some of vocational characteristics. Recently, married women's participation in economic activities and their hope of occupational re-entry are getting higher. In this moment, irrational beliefs that women with career interruption can have easily should be analyzed, interpreted and corrected to more rational and realistic beliefs so that their job search and employment can be supported effectively through systematic employment counseling. Therefore, the present study is regarded meaningful in that it suggested the importance of employment counseling for occupational re-entry women and the necessity of more specific and specialized employment counseling according to individuals' characteristics.