The purpose of this study is to analyse work-family balance policy of South Korea, Japan and Sweden in lights of freedom of choice by parents, gender-balance of care work, and adaptation to labour market environment and thereby is to explore the reaso...
The purpose of this study is to analyse work-family balance policy of South Korea, Japan and Sweden in lights of freedom of choice by parents, gender-balance of care work, and adaptation to labour market environment and thereby is to explore the reason that three countries have pursued different work-family balance policy. The reason being focused the policy character is that it , even though three countries have implemented similar policies under the heading of work-family balance, may produce different policy outcome in terms of birth rate and achievement level of gender-equality in work or family.
The results of analysis of this study are as follows;
First, there is difference between countries of policy character of support for care work, along the ideological interpretation of freedom of choice by parents. In Sweden, different ruling parties have undertaken various forms of care work support policy. For example, progressive ruling party, Social Democratic party, perceived this freedom of choice as the idea that women can choice various types of labour, according to their situation. In this context they developed public child care service as top priority. And they also developed various types of child care service to be adapted to various labour types and lessened parents' burden of childcare fee. On the contrary, conservative ruling party regarded this freedom of choice as women may prefer non-paid work rather than paid-work. Hence they developed child care allowance which makes women to care their children under non-employment situation. To sum up, perspective about freedom of choice of progressive ruling party is to regard women as labourer. But the perspective of conservative ruling party is to regard women as housewives.
In case of Japan, the idea of freedom of choice is translated into service user's freedom of choice of child care facilities Such an idea has been crystallized into deregulation of quorum of child care facilities and its establishment. Such a deregulation was resulted in lowering of qualification of child care services. And regarding strategy to raise possibility about work- family balance, Japan made a choice to increase burden of parents, firms and local governments under the slogan of welfare society. This strategy was quitely different from Sweden's one to reinforce central government's role. Finally such a choice produced additional burden of parents' child care fee. Finally, women's status being inherent in Japanese care support policy was 1.5 worker which means motherhood position is mainly maintained and labourer's status was partially allowed.
In case of Korea, its child care policy was concentrated on support for low income family's needs for child care rather than women's labourers' needs. But Private child care facilities for profit are dominant in Korea. So access to those facilities is very difficult for the class including the middle class which is not supported by government, because of too expensive child care fee.
While in Sweden and Japan, an idea of freedom of choice has contributed to development of care work support policy, in Korea the effort to lessen expensive child care fee has led to enrichment of child care policy. But because of too expensive child care fee in Korea, women's freedom to make a choice any kinds of paid-work was not guaranteed. In this context, women's status in current work-family balance policy of Korea is restricted to status as motherhood. Hence policy for gender-balanced work-family balance is not still proposed.
Secondly, regarding care work policy for parents, those three countries' policy character depends who is responsible for care work. In case of Sweden, the state guarantees generous parents leave and high income replacement rate during the leave. In Sweden father and mother are responsible for child care. But in reality, mother's participation ratio at parent leave scheme is very high against father's participation. Hence, Sweden has made an effort to achieve gender-balance in child care scheme through 'papa quota system' as of strategy of familization of male.
As a result, father's participation ratio at parent leave scheme became increased. But perfect gender equality at parent leave scheme is not achieved. To solve such a problem, Sweden introduced expansion of duration of parent leave which is suggested by Social Democratic Party and Gender Equality Bonus suggested by conservative ruling party. To sum up, care work support policy is not completely based on gender-equality participation, but it is sure parents are truly responsible for care work.
In case of care work support policy of Japan, mainly mother is responsible for care work. Hence gender-division of care work and housework is maintained and possibility of work-family balance for women is still low. Male's long working hours have prevented male from participating child care work, also prevented women from joining economic activity and disrupting gender-balance of care work support policy. Even though that, Japan didn't make labour market environment adapt to family friendly environment and didn't introduce active male's familization strategy such as papa quota. So in Japan, perspectives on care work and employment is not integrated. Structural problem of care work support policy of Japan has led to women's high drop ratio from employment, even though women didn't have a baby and feminization of irregular work after childbirth.
In case of Korea, effective gender-balance policy such as male's familization in the area of care work support isn't introduced. In this respect Korea is similar to Japan. Similar to Japanese male, It is difficult for Korean male to join the child care work due to their long working hours. In particular, regarding participation in maternity leave scheme of Korea, women are responsible for care-work. But right of women and men to care-work is not guaranteed and thereby the possibility of work-family balance is not likely.
Thirdly, Character of care work support policy can be different according to accommodation of labour market. In particular conflict between employment flexibility and care work support policy could be solved by the accommodation of labour market. In Sweden, a number of women participating in parent leave scheme are usually part-time workers. By the way, because wage gap between men and women is not big and rights of women to social security are guaranteed, side-effect of flexibility strategy such as mammy track didn't happen. In other words, work-family balance for part-time women workers could become possible because of accommodation of labour market. Hence gender-equal care work support policy could be implemented. In this respect, the character of work-family balance policy of Sweden can be said that care perspective and employment perspective are integrated, enough effective solution to meet the needs of women to balance work and family.
In case of Japan, it introduced shorter working hours and flexible working style in order to balance work and family life. But due to long working hours, lifelong-employment and big wage gap between men and women resulted by seniority system, short-time work has contributed to form unequal gender work-family policy such as mammy track rather than to help to create gender-balanced work-family policy. In addition to this, tax scheme such as '1,030,000 Yen Spouse Tax Credit' has contributed to form unequal gender work-family policy. Finally Japan was trying to incorporate employment perspective into care work support policy, but failed to accommodate side-effect and conflict resulted from the incorporation of both perspectives.
In case of Korea, similar policy to accommodation of labour market of Japan was introduced. In the late of the year 2000, flexible working time policy such as short-time work was introduced as means of work-family balance policy. But the policy failed due to absence of regulation to fight against discrimination in employment, Moreover, 'short-time work' is much likely to contribute to feminization of irregular work rather than to help to promote the possibility of work-family balance. The reason is due to high wage gap between men and women, or between employment type, exclusion of irregular workers from social security and low likelihood to transform irregular work to regular one.
In other words, The time short-time work was introduced was coincided with that labour marker isn't fully accommodated. Hence gender-unequal work-family balance model is much likely to become set in. To put it other words, as of child birth facilitation, care and employment perspective is accepted in work-family balance policy. But both perspective wasn't not fully incorporated into the policy and holistic approach to care-work , gender-division and discrimination of labour market isn't implemented. Of course some accommodation policy of labour market was introduced but the policy didn't succeed in showing matching with care work support policy. Hence strategy of flexible working hours has led to facilitate women's whole responsibility for care work rather than to raise the possibility the work-family balance. As a result, work-family balance policy of Korea isn't much influential on total fertility rate.
In conclusion, when care work support policy and active labour market accommodation policy are simultaneously implemented on the basis of holistic approach of care and employment perspective, possibility of gender-equality work-family balance are much likely in Korea.