1
Introduction
This book aims to uncover gender assumptions of welfare states that
are very different from Western ones, and to understand women’s
experience of welfare states across a range of East Asian countries.
Gender inequalities in East Asian social policies are clearly important
for women across East Asia, and yet they have had too little attention
in the literature comparing welfare states. The comparative literature
has largely been concerned with Western Welfare states, whether in
The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Esping-Andersen 1990), or in
gender-based analysis of the male breadwinner model (Lewis 1992,
2001, 2006). Are the welfare systems of East Asian countries distinctive,
with Confucian cultural assumptions hidden beneath the surface
commitment to gender equality? While economies have been developing
rapidly, are social policies becoming less traditional in their
expectations of women? East Asian welfare regimes have been studied
since the late 1980s, but research questioning their underpinning
gender assumptions is new.
The book showcases new research in several East Asian countries,
including Korea, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Japan, to develop an
understanding of gender in welfare systems that have some common
history and culture. It will bring together research on gender in welfare
systems with a Confucian history. It will also ask about the extent to
which Confucian values and practices of gender difference persist in
the context of modern welfare states with gender equality legislation.
How seriously are gender equality policies promoted by governments?
What impact do gender equality policies have at the household level?
How difficult is it for households to practise gender equality in these
1
Introduction: Gender and Welfare
States in East Asia
Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
2 Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
contexts? Are Confucian values more powerful and gender differences
more extreme than comparable aspects of Western welfare systems?
How do such conflicts play out in China and Hong Kong, countries
with similar cultural backgrounds but contrasting political ones? Has
the communist attack on Confucian gender inequalities created societies
in which women and men are equally valued and have equal
power in households? What assumptions now underpin social policies,
and how are they experienced in practice? How is the welfare system
in Hong Kong managed in the post-colonial period? Some (Chiu and
Wong 2005: 97) argue that the new SAR government’s new vision for
Hong Kong is an ‘amalgamation of Confucian values and free market
economy’. How does this affect gender equality and policy issues in
Hong Kong?
These chapters complement the broad brush debates in the introduction
with detailed discussion of gender in the welfare systems of indi-
vidualEastAsiancountries.Thebookdiscussesthecombinationofchange
and tradition in East Asian welfare states. Rapid economic development
makes East Asian economies remarkable, as ‘tiger economies’, bringing
a transformation of living conditions. These changes bring clear social
benefits, with women’s life expectancy in Japan the highest among OECD
(Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) countries,
and Korean women’s life expectancy increasing at a faster pace than any
other OECD country. Political changes bring gender equality legislation,
which is important for improving women’s rights in employment and
family law. There are signs of change in society – including gender – as
well as in economy and polity. Detailed study of women’s experience in
practice, particularly as mothers in marriage, and out of it, shows the
persistence of some traditional family hierarchies which put younger
mothers under unusual pressures, and which could not be described as
gender equal. But there is room for optimism that women’s involvement
in social movements and academic enquiry may be challenging
Confucian gender hierarchies (Pascall and Sung 2007).
Social and economic change
Rapid economic and social changes are a crucial backdrop for understanding
East Asian welfare states and the changing legislative framework
impacting on gender. Korea is one of the fastest growing economies in
the OECD, sustaining rapid growth through the crisis years of 2007–2012
(OECD 2012a). Economic change brings clear benefits: life expectancies
are among the highest in the world, with Japanese women expecting
Gender and Welfare States in East Asia 3
to live to 85+, while Korean women have higher life expectancy than
UK women, despite per capita income of around two-third the UK figure
(OECD 2011). According to the Population Database from the United
Nations (2009), life expectancy in China is also rising sharply: by 2040
the average life expectancy will reach 78 years and more than 20 per cent
of population will be over 65 (in Ye 2011). China is also facing demographic
transition with rapid economic growth, from a ‘high fertility,
high mortality phase to a phase of low fertility and low mortality’
(Ye 2011: 679). Figure 1.1 draws on OECD data to show the leading position
of East Asian countries in life expectancy, with Japan and Korea
above the Western social democracies:
Japan has nearly the lowest Infant Mortality Rate, even among the
social democratic countries such as Iceland, Sweden, Norway and
Finland, while Korea’s is again close to the United Kingdom’s, despite
Korea’s lower per capita income (OECD 2006). Increasing life expectancy
and low infant mortality are clear indications of women’s health (Pascall
and Sung 2007).
But public social expenditure in East Asian countries remains low.
Korean public social expenditure, as a percentage of GDP, is among the
lowest shown in Figure 1.2, in contrast with Scandinavian countries at
the other end of the spectrum. Private spending fills some of the gap,
but Korea’s social spending altogether is low, suggesting that families fill
much more of the gap:
90
Number of years
80
70
60
50
40
ZAF
IN
D
ID
N
R
U
S
C
H
N
TU
R
BR
AM
EXH
U
N
SVK
PO
L
EST
C
ZE
U
SA
C
H
LD
N
KO
EC
DSVN
IR
L
G
BR
PRTG
R
C
N
LD
N
ZL
BELD
EU
C
AN
AU
TN
O
R
ISL
LU
X
SW
E
FIN
ISR
KO
R
AU
S
FR
A
ITA
ITT
C
H
E
ESP
JPN
2009 or latest available year 1960 or first available year
Figure 1.1 Life expectancy at birth: women, 2009
Source: OECD Factbook 2011a.
4 Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
Japan’s public social expenditure is also below the OECD average.
These data give rise to doubts about governments’ commitments to the
social care activities which have tended to define women’s domestic
lives and contain their public ones. Figures for public social spending
over time (Figure 1.3) show Korea increasing from around 5 per cent in
the 1990s towards 10 per cent projected for 2012, but remaining well
below the OECD average, and even further below that of France, given
here as a contrasting Western European example:
1980 1985
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1990 1995 2000 2007 2012
Australia
KoreaKK
United Kingdom
United States
France
OECD
Figure 1.3 Public social spending, as percentage of GDP, for selected OECD countries,
1980–2012
Source: OECD 2012a Social Expenditure Database.
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
M
EX
KO
R
TU
R
C
H
L
EST
ISR
SVK
IR
L
N
ZL
C
ZE
ISL
AU
S
PO
L
SVN
LVX
O
EC
D
ESP
C
AN
JPN
G
R
C
N
O
R
H
U
N
PRT
FIN
G
BR
U
SA
C
H
E
ITA
ITT
N
LD
D
EU
AU
T
D
N
K
SEW
BEL
FR
A
Public Private
Figure 1.2 Public and private social expenditure, as a percentage of GDP, 2007
Source: OECD Factbook 2011a.
Gender and Welfare States in East Asia 5
Policy changes, bringing gender equality legislation, are important.
In Japan, the Basic Law for a Gender-Equal Society in 1999 described a
gender-equal society for the first time in Japan and required the state to
promote gender participation and gender equality. The opening article
of this law proposes ‘a “gender-free” society which does not reflect the
stereotyped division of roles on the basis of gender but rather has as
neutral an impact as possible on the selection of social activities by
men and women as equal partners’ (Takao 2007: 153). Japan’s mandatory
long-term care insurance was started in 2000, bringing entitlement
to those aged 65 and above, to institutional and community-based
care, according to need, bringing an ‘abrupt shift of gender policy’
(Takao 2007: 154) from earlier assumptions about the obligations of
daughters-in-law. The government’s perceptions of a need to bring
women into employment, while increasing the birth rate, are seen as
crucial contributing factors to this change, while women activists have
also played a vital role (Takao 2007). In Korea too, there have been
important developments in gender equality legislation. Since 2001, the
Ministry of Gender Equality has been the focus for state policy, operating
through women’s bureaux and through legislation: the Gender
Equality Employment Act, Framework Act on Women’s Development,
and Employment Insurance Act (Won 2007). These are clearly significant
symbolic moments in women’s action towards gender equality,
but we need to ask about their significance in practice under Confucian
conditions.
Culture and gender: East Asian culture in transition?
Confucianism has been identified as the main cultural heritage in East
Asian countries by many Western and Eastern scholars. Some argue that
Confucian traditions, such as diligence and hard work, a great emphasis
on education, and dutifulness, helped East Asian countries to achieve
rapid economic growth. However, others downplay economic growth
in favour of the disadvantages imposed, particularly in relation to
gender: ‘in traditional Confucian societies women were in a disadvantaged
position’ (Palley and Gelb 1992: 3). The Confucian influence on
women’s position in society can be best represented with the virtue of
three obediences: ‘to the father, the husband and the son’ (Lee 2005).
After marriage, women belong to families-in-law and become strangers
to their natal families (Sung 2003).
These strong Confucian traditions on women are indeed changing,
as a result of industrialization, changes in family structure, women’s
6 Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
increasing participation in the labour market and the recent development
of gender equality policies. However, in East Asian countries, tradition
and modernity co-exist: Western influence of gender equality ideals and
traditional Confucian patriarchal family systems are intertwined within
these societies. As Lee (2005: 166) argued in her research on women and
the Korean family: ‘although the Korean family resembles the nuclear
family in structure, in terms of the actual activities undertaken within it,
the principles of the stem family and the extensive influence of the traditional
conceptualization of the family have not diminished’. Married
women are still more responsible for their family-in-law than their own
families. In her research, women often felt duty and responsibility to
their parents-in-law, although they were emotionally closer to their natal
families. Women also often gave priority to their husbands’ families over
their own, while men did not feel the same way about their wives’ families.
This shows that the Confucian tradition still has a strong influence
on women in Korean families. In Japan, though with weaker influence
of Confucian traditional gender roles than Korea, women’s status was
often considered as secondary in society and resulted in limited roles for
women (Palley and Gelb 1992). In Taiwan, it still seems women’s primary
roles as carers and domestic workers have not substantially changed,
despite the increasing numbers of women entering the labour market
as wage earners (Wu 2007). According to Lin and Yi (2011), the strong
patriarchal cultural heritage in China and Taiwan influences intergenerational
support to ageing parents. From the 2006 East Asian Social Survey,
they found that traditional Chinese filial norms still prevail in intergenerational
relations. For instance, it is expected that adult children – especially
sons – will take the major responsibility for parental support, by
co-residence and by providing financial resources. Wong’s study (1995)
of Hong Kong found about 60 per cent of respondents agreed that
children should take the primary responsibility for the financial needs
of elderly parents (cited from Chan 2011). While women’s increasing
participation in the labour market represents social and cultural change
in East Asia, it is also important to note that traditional gender roles still
prevail within the family and wider society. In this transitional period,
East Asian women may encounter conflicts within their families and
societies, as well as within themselves.
Family law: gender equality legislation
The family’s key role in society as a provider of social welfare is common
to East Asian welfare systems. Welfare systems have been described as
Gender and Welfare States in East Asia 7
‘productivist’, emphasizing economic objectives with strong education
and health services to reproduce human resources (Holliday 2000,
2005), or Confucian, to emphasize the role of the family in welfare and
of Confucian values in social harmony. Confucian values may be seen
as a cover for welfare states pursuing economic growth at the expense of
everything else: in particular, real Confucian values of social solidarity
(Chan 2006). While welfare states everywhere have a place for family
responsibility, East Asian ones draw on Confucian values to give families
a very special responsibility for social welfare. A Confucian tradition of
patri-lineal and patri-local families has influenced family living arrangements,
with three-generation households, sons expected to live with
their parents, and daughters expected to move away on marriage. Filial
piety underpins this, with a hierarchy based on gender and generation.
While these traditions persist in ideology and reality, households are
shrinking and becoming less complex. A change towards nuclear family
living arrangements increases younger women’s ability to make their
own decisions.
Family law has protected men’s interests and male dominance in
Taiwan and in Korea. In Taiwan, rights to property and decision-making
were seen, under family law, as belonging to male breadwinners, while
wives were pressured to leave their families of origin and take up their
husbands’ domicile. Family law also protected men’s guardianship of
children after divorce, which made it very difficult for wives to leave
unhappy marriages. Women have fought for revisions of this legislation
and have achieved – by a third round of revisions in 2002 – parity
in decisions over domicile, surname and parental rights, while men’s
economic dominance in family law has been reduced (Wu 2007: 92–94).
Similarly Korean civil law protected the male line and male dominance
through the ho-ju system. Ho-ju means ‘head of the family’ and men’s
rights to be head of the family have been protected, through a hierarchy
in which – when a ho-ju dies – a male of any generation takes precedence
over the ho-ju’s wife. The father’s name was written as the head of the
family in official documents, such as identity cards, and following the
father’s death, the eldest son became head of the family, not the mother
(Sung 2003). This idea of the ‘man as the head of the family’ has been
challenged: reform of Family Law in 2008 abolished the ‘ho-ju’ system
in Korea (Kim 2008).
But differences persist between East Asian families based on Confucian
traditions and Western families. In Western families, interactions between
husbands and wives are key, while the Confucian family system cannot
be fully understood without analysing interactions between family-in-law
8 Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
and daughter-in-law, as well as between husband and wife (Sung 2003).
Although the Confucian family system has faded, traditional ideas of
women’s subordination to their husbands and parents-in-law may still
prevail in East Asian families. Changing legislation is crucial to underpin
mothers’ rights to guardianship of their children and to living independently.
But we should ask whether Confucian cultural assumptions continue
to bring gender inequality in East Asian societies, despite the climate of
change – and political action – bringing legislation for gender equality.
Gender in welfare regimes in East Asia:
cultural perspectives
Do social policy approaches overlook the impact of culture on societies
and social policy provision? Or do cultural interpretations overemphasize
the role of culture, providing a weapon for conservative ideology,
playing into traditional hands? Arguments for more understanding of
culture and of the interrelationship between culture and social policy are
made by some scholars (Baldock 1999; Clarke 2004; Oorschot 2007). PfauEffinger
(1999) argues that Lewis’s ‘male breadwinner model’ neglects
the cultural ideals behind social action: she sees welfare state policies and
culture as mutually interrelated, in complex and sometimes contradictory
ways. She defines the gender culture as those norms and values that
shape the desirable, ‘normal’ form of gender relations and of the division
of labour between women and men. Thus, she argues, it is important to
notice the way welfare state policies are embedded in their respective
societal context, in any theoretical framework for cross-national analysis.
Similarly, Stadelmann-Steffen (2008:391) argues that women’s employment
is influenced by the ‘gender culture’. Cultural values have an
influence on the formation of a ‘women-friendly’ societal and political
framework, as well as the individual employment decisions of women.
Some studies (Pfau-Effinger 2005; Reiger and Leibfried 2003) focus on
the influence of culture on welfare states, proposing that the theoretical
framework for the comparative study of welfare has to broaden its scope
by looking at the mutual relationship between the welfare state’s policy
and culture, but without excluding structural dimensions.
Confucianism has long been the most prevalent culture in some East
Asian countries. Jones identified East Asian welfare systems as ‘Confucian
welfare states’:
Conservative corporatism without (western-style) worker participation;
subsidiarity without the church; solidarity without equality;
Gender and Welfare States in East Asia 9
laissez-faire without libertarianism: an alternative expression for
all this might be ‘household economy’ welfare state – run in the
style of a would-be traditional, Confucian, extended family.
(Jones 1993: 214)
Alternatively, Walker and Wang’s (2005) study emphasizes the role
of political ideology and downplays Confucianism as a contemporary
aspect of social policy in East Asia. They claim that the influence of
Confucian culture has been overestimated in the past and the present,
when analyzing East Asian welfare regimes. In their view, ‘Confucianism
is best understood as an adjunct to political ideology, which provided
powerful backing to the conservatism of East Asian governments in
the formative stages of social policy’ (Walker and Wang 2005: 229). A
rather similar argument is made in this volume by Ochiai and Johshita
about the misuse of cultural arguments by political leaders in Japan
to fix gender roles, inhibiting international influences towards gender
equality.
However, these arguments underplay the cultural role of Confucianism
in the lives of individuals, especially of women, considering
its impact on traditional gender beliefs in some East Asian countries.
Reiger and Leibfried (2003) highlight the impact of Confucian culture
on shaping social policy in East Asian countries. They also argue
that research focussing on either quantitative aspects of welfare state
expansion or formal, institutional features of welfare state institutions
often overlooks the impact of cultural factors that shape social
policy. Thus, it is important for social policy analysts to pay more
attention to culture as one of the welfare state’s important dimensions
as well as to political economy, given how little research is done
on the impact of culture when analyzing social policy, gender and
the welfare state in particular. We need to understand the interrelationship
between culture and social policy, particularly the extent to
which Confucianism has influenced gender differences in East Asian
welfare systems (Sung 2003).
The key concern of this book is to explore the influence of Confucian
culture on gender and social welfare in East Asia. As Clarke (2004:
50) argues, cultural analysis has not attempted to expel the ‘material, the
economic or the structural’ but rejected these as the sole focus, arguing
rather for culture as an objective variable exerting its influence alongside
political, economic and institutional factors. Here, the focus is on
understanding the impact of Confucian culture on gender and welfare
states in East Asia.
10 Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
Gender in welfare regimes: equality legislation in
a Confucian context
How can we understand the gender logic underpinning the welfare
systems of East Asia? We will argue here that – while there are differences
between East Asian welfare states – they have some features in common:
in particular a hierarchical Confucian model of the family, prioritizing
male breadwinners, which has only recently been challenged by feminist
movements and gender equality legislation.
The characterization of gender regimes based on the male breadwinner/dual
earner spectrum (Lewis 1992) puts gender at the centre of
comparative analysis and is a starting point here. Gender regimes are
understood as systems of gender equality or inequality through which
paid work is connected to unpaid, state services and benefits are delivered
to individuals or households, costs are allocated, and time is shared
between men and women in households as well as between households
and employment. The decline of the male breadwinner model
has widespread implications in Western Europe (Creighton 1999; Lewis
2001). Welfare states are analyzed here in component parts of the male
breadwinner/dual earner spectrum: paid work, income, care work, time
and power, asking to what extent they can be seen as systems of gender
equality or as systems of traditional gender roles in each of these parts.
We thus use the (mainly western) comparative literature, but argue
that Confucian influences remain important, with strong assumptions
of family, market and voluntary sector responsibility rather than state
responsibility, strong expectations of women’s obligations, without
compensating rights, a hierarchy of gender and age, and a distinctive,
vertical family structure, in which women are subject to parents-in-law.
In rapidly changing economies, these social characteristics are changing
too. But they still put powerful pressures on women to conform to
expectations about care, while weakening their rights to security and
support. Nowhere do welfare states’ promises bring gender equality in
practice. Even in Scandinavian countries women earn less, care more,
and have less power than men. We shall compare East Asian countries
with some Western ones, to argue that some major comparative data
show the extreme situation of women in these countries.
We also need to ask about the level and nature of policy intervention.
The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Esping-Andersen 1990) are relevant
to gender, because the Social Democratic countries have had gender
equality as well as social equality at their heart (Ellingsaeter and Leira
2006). Social democratic regimes have also underpinned gender equality
Gender and Welfare States in East Asia 11
with social policies, social spending and social commitment to parents
and children. Elsewhere, commitment to traditional families, to gender
difference or to free markets may play a greater role than gender equality.
Figure 1.4 offers a way to understand key components of gender systems,
combined with different levels of intervention in welfare systems:
Voice
Gender
equality
Daddy leave
Parental
leave Market
care services
Voluntary sector careVV
State care services
Educational/cultural services
Paid work
Time
Levels of policy intervention
Care work
Incomes
1. Individual
2. Household
3. Civil society
4. Social/collective
Proportional representation
Q
uotas
The
parity
principle
Holidayandafterschoolservices
Shorterworkingweek
Timecontrolinhouseholds
Taxandbenefitincentives
Schoolscheduling
Equalvaluefor
p-twork
Developing
social
m
ovem
ents Equal access
to
quality
jobs
Labour m
arket attachm
ent
Equal opportunities
m
achinery
Equalopportunitytoearn
Splittingpensionrightson
divorceSplittingpension
rightsannually
Cashbenefitsforcarers.Taxcreditsforcarers
Pensioncreditsforcarers.Participationincomes
Sex
discrim
ination
Career breaks/
re-entry
Flexiblework
Equal pay
1.
2.
3.
4.
Figure 1.4 Policies for gender equality
Source: Pascall and Lewis (2004).
12 Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
Are there alternative scenarios for a more gender equal future? The idea
of making men’s lives more like women’s is at the heart of Nancy Fraser’s
Universal Caregiver model, in which all employees would be assumed
to have care responsibilities, while developments in civil society would
enable care to be shared (Fraser 1997). But it is argued here that gender
equality needs extensive and systematic support, beyond the capacity
of civil society. The French working time model also has something to
contribute to thinking about building a society in which men and women
have time to care as well as to work and to earn. Government commitments
to gender equality need underpinning with regulation of time and
with social investment. Comparative data clearly show that Scandinavian
social democratic countries are the most gender equal: but they have still
prioritized women’s employment over men’s care. In a model of Universal
Citizenship, gender equality would go beyond paid employment – important
as that has been – and attend to gender inequalities in care, income,
time and power: men’s and women’s obligations to paid work and care as
citizens would be underpinned by regulation of working time and electoral
systems and by social investment in citizenship rights.
Employment
The gaps between men’s and women’s employment have been falling in
most OECD countries. Governments have wanted and enabled women’s
labour market participation for economic reasons, and women themselves
have increasingly seen earning as key to their independence and
security. Figure 1.5 shows gender gaps in employment across a wide
range of countries:
50
TurkeyG
reece
ItalyJapanKorea
KK
Spain
C
zech
R
epublic
Luxem
bourg
Slovak
R
epublicIrelandPoland
AustraliaAustria
Belgium
H
ungary
N
ew
zealand
Sw
itzerland
U
nited
Kingdom
N
etherlands
G
erm
any
Portugal
U
nited
StatesFrance
D
enm
arkIcelandC
anadaN
orway
Sw
edenFinland
40
30
20
10
0
Gender gap employment rate Gender gap FTE employment rate
Figure 1.5 Gender gap in employment rates, 2008
Source: Gender Brief (OECD 2010).
Gender and Welfare States in East Asia 13
2009 1995
Turkey
Greece
Italy
Mexico
Chile
China
India
0 20 40 60 80
% of female population
South Africa
Indonesia
Brazil
Russian Federation
Japan
Korea
Spain
Czech Republic
Luxembourg
Slovak Republic
Ireland
0EC034 average
Israel
Estonia
Slovenia
Poland
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Hungary
New zealand
Switzerland
United Kingdom
Netherlands
Germany
Portugal
United States
France
Denmark
Iceland
Canada
Norway
Sweden
Finland
69.3
34.2
47.1
49.4
63.0
63.8
66.2
65.6
77.2
74.4
73.3
73.1
70.2
70.3
69.1
67.9
67.4
66.4
65.2
63.4
61.6
60.0
69.8
59.6
56.7
57.0
56.0
55.6
53.5
52.8
52.8
52.2
49.9
48.9
46.4
43.0
42.2
56.8
64.9
24.2
57.8
Figure 1.6 Proportion of women (aged 15–64) in the labour market, 1995–2009
Source: Doing Better for families (OECD 2011).
14 Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
Everywhere still – even in Scandinavian countries – men’s labour market
participation is higher than women’s. As shown in Figure 1.5, among the
most economically developed countries of the OECD, Japan and Korea
have notably high gaps between men’s and women’s employment, at the
opposite end of the spectrum to Finland, Sweden and Norway.
Participation rates for women are shown in Figure 1.6: 52.2 per cent
of Korean women participate in paid work, while Japanese women
are just above the OECD average of 59.6 per cent. Both are well below
Scandinavian countries, Iceland and Norway, where women’s participation
rates are well over 70 per cent. The proportion of Chinese women
in employment reflects China’s mixed history of communist and market
forces at 10 per cent above the OECD average and nearly 70 per cent.
Incomes
Earnings gaps in Korea and Japan are also strikingly high. Again, women’s
earnings are below men’s in all OECD countries, on average 16 per cent
lower in 2010. But in Korea, women earn 39 per cent less than men,
while in Japan the gap has been reducing more rapidly than in Korea,
but remains nearly 30 per cent:
10
15
20
25
30
35
40 2010( ) 2000
45
%
5
0
H
ungary
N
ew
Zealand
N
orw
ay
Belgium
Sw
eden
O
EC
D
25
U
nited
Kingdom
U
nited
States
G
erm
any
Japan
Korea
Figure 1.7 Gender gap in median earnings for full-time employees, 2000 and
2010 (or nearest year)
Source: OECD Gender initiative (2012b).
Gender and Welfare States in East Asia 15
High pay gaps are among reasons families prioritize men’s employment.
In Korea, discussing whether fathers might take parental leave,
economic reasons were a key element in their decisions (Won and
Pascall 2004). Large pay gaps make it difficult for women to press their
claims to keeping continuity of employment and developing careers.
Despite lower pay, economic needs are prominent among women’s
reasons for labour market participation. Women’s ability to support
themselves independently of partners is less than men’s in most
countries. In Korea, Japan and Taiwan several factors keep women’s
earnings well below men’s. The high pay gap, a tendency for participation
to dip (more than comparable countries) when women become
mothers, long uncontrolled working hours which make it difficult for
mothers to sustain their labour market position: all these limit the
extent to which women’s employment brings independence (Pascall
and Sung 2007).
The fragility of life outside families is evidenced by the lack of alternative
state support through unemployment, parenthood, sickness
and old age. According to Gao et al.’s comparative study (2011) of the
Basic Livelihood Security (BLS), systems in China and South Korea,
both offer low benefits, insufficient to meet the needs of poor families.
They share strict means-testing, limited coverage and a common
culture emphasizing familism. In Hong Kong, the social security
programme was described as an ‘absolute minimum expenditure
and minimum intervention in the market or the systems of family
obligation’ (Macpherson 1993: 5). In 1999, workfare programmes in
Hong Kong were introduced to ‘change the attitude of unemployed
recipients who are less motivated’ (Social Welfare Department 1998:
15; in Chan 2011). Chan argues that the workfare scheme in Hong
Kong was not introduced to address welfare dependency with a big
social security budget but to maintain a low level of social security
benefits and a low tax regime. Under workfare, unemployed recipients
are required to participate in compulsory voluntary work immediately.
Chan (2011) claims that the punitive nature of the scheme
impacts on the social atmosphere, discouraging citizens who need
benefits from seeking them. Taiwan also provides relatively low levels
of benefits, compared with other industrialized countries. Although
public expenditure in Taiwan has risen since the late 1990s, in the
wake of political democratization, the increase was small relative to
the growth of GDP (Huang and Ku 2011). Without state support to
meet social needs, and with low pay from employment, women, espe-
16 Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
cially those with young children, are very far from being able to form
‘autonomous households’ (Orloff 1993).
Care
Childcare and care for older relatives are key components of gender differences
in employment and public life. Government strategies to increase
women’s employment have included socializing childcare, regulating
employers to provide leave so that mothers can combine childcare and
employment, and – much more rarely – encouraging a new division
of labour so that men’s responsibility for childcare can be supported
through dedicated ‘Daddy leave’. Women’s increasing labour market
participation has been widely encouraged, as a solution to economic
pressures and family change. But while gender differences in care are
converging, they are also deeply entrenched (Gershuny 2000) and have
been much less subject to government policy, even in Scandinavian
countries, where fathers’ responsibility for childcare has been promoted
by governments.
To what extent are East Asian countries socialising and sharing the
costs of childcare between parents and others? Comparative data on
public spending show Korea and Japan among the countries with the
lowest public spending on childcare and early education services, at the
opposite end to Denmark, Iceland, France and Sweden:
1.6
% GDP
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
D
enm
arkIcelandFrance
Sw
eden
Finland*
BelgiumN
orw
ay
H
ungary
N
ew
Zealand
ItalyM
axico
U
K
C
zech
R
epublic
N
etharlandsSpain*
Slovak
R
epublic
Portugal
Luxem
bourg
Australia
G
erm
any
U
SJapanAustria*PolandIreland*
Sw
itzarlandKoreaC
anadaG
reece
Child care spending as a % of GDP Pre-primary spending as a % of GDP
Figure 1.8 Public expenditure on childcare and early education services, as a
percentage of GDP, 2005
Notes: * For Austria, Findland, Ireland and Spain only aggregate spending data are presented.
Source: OECD Gender Brief (OECD 2010).
Gender and Welfare States in East Asia 17
OECD data also allow us to compare fertility and changes in fertility.
These reflect many different pressures, and are not a direct indicator of
pressure on mothers’ time, but they do suggest that motherhood may be
becoming difficult for mothers in Japan and Korea:
Korea
Portugal
India
Russian Federation
China
Brazil
Indonesia
South Africa
Netherlands
Germany
Poland
Slowak Republic
Czech Republic
Austria
Switzerland
Greece
Canada
Estonia
Luxembourg
Slovenia
0EC034 average
Spain
Finland
Sweden
Japan
France
Chile
Italy
Hungary
United States
Israel
Norway
New zealand
United Kingdom
Denmark
Australia
Belgium
Iceland
Mexico
Turkey
Ireland
1.15
1.37
1.36
1.33
1.32
2.74
1.54
1.77
1.86
2.17
2.43
1.79
1.40
1.49
1.53
1.53
1.59
1.41
1.63
1.66
1.74
1.50
1.86
1.94
1.41
1.99
2.00
1.53
1.39
2.01
1.98
2.14
1.94
Replacement rate = 2.11.84
1.90
1.83
2.22
2.96
2.08
2.12
2.07
0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0
Children per woman
2009 1980
Figure 1.9 Total fertility rates, 1980 and 2009
Source: Doing Better for Families (OECD 2011).
18 Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
Korea is at the lowest end among OECD countries, with just over one
child, and Japan a little above that. Korea shows one of the most rapid
declines, more than halving from over two in 1980 to just over one in
2009. The Scandinavian countries are still below replacement threshold
but have been stabilizing over this period. In Japan, the birth rate’s
rapid decline has brought policy changes towards ‘attempts to reconcile
aspects of family and work life’ (Gelb 2003: 114). A 1997 survey in
Japan found most respondents saw the main reasons for the decline of
the birth rate as the heavy cost of children’s education (58.2 per cent of
respondents), lack of financial security (50.1 per cent) and the difficulty
of raising children while continuing work (44.7 per cent) (Foreign Press
Centre (1997: 4) in Gelb 2003: 114). Very low fertility and very rapid
decline could indicate great pressures on families in other East Asian
countries, especially Korea (OECD 2007: 8).
Debates about the relationship between government, NGO, market
and family responsibility for childcare take place everywhere. Most of
these debates are premised on the need to sustain mothers’ employment,
and say nothing at all about men. Scandinavian countries and
the Netherlands are exceptions to this. Iceland has the most developed
and successful scheme of dedicated Daddy leave (with three months
for mothers, three for fathers, and three to share between them) which
encourages men to stay at home with their children for the three months
paid leave to which they are entitled. What debates flourish in East
Asian countries about who should parent, take leave and responsibility?
The Gender Equal Employment Law (2002) in Taiwan has given rights
to parental leave for men and women and obliges (in principle) larger
employers to provide childcare facilities (Wu 2007). In Korea, the Gender
Equality Employment Act was revised in 2001, to extend childcare leave
to working mothers or fathers to 52 weeks, while Infant Care legislation
again makes larger employers responsible for childcare (Won and
Pascall 2004). Also, maternity leave pay has increased from 250,000 won
per month in 2001 to 500,000 won (approximately £250) in 2007 (Kim
2008). In Japan, economic pressures to bring women into the labour
market have brought expansion of the Childcare Leave Law in 1999, to
include a three-month nursing care leave, with the scheme expanded
to include a close relative as well as children, and was renamed as the
Childcare and Family Leave. In 2005, the law was revised again to allow
parents up to five days of leave a year to care for a sick child (Lambert
2007). Childcare services in Japan have also improved, as a result of the
1994 Angel plan, which was to tackle low fertility through a widened
welfare state-based social care network. The services offered extended
Gender and Welfare States in East Asia 19
hours, infant care, and after-school care programmes. In 1999, the
numbers of babies admitted to public day care increased, as the New
Angel plan was introduced (Gottfried and O’Reilly 2001; Peng 2001: 46,
in Gelb 2003: 116). Figure 1.10 shows these developments in an international
context:
Although the recent development of family policies indicates improvement
of gender equality policies in East Asian countries, there are still big
gaps between policies and practices. For instance, there is evidence from
Won that at least some Korean men feel that taking leave for childcare
would threaten their jobs and their reputations as men (Won 2007).
These male respondents are not unusual in dismissing taking leave
to care for children. But perhaps they are more vehement than their
Western counterparts in their negative expression of men’s responsibility
for childcare. European Foundation data show men and women
in Europe with gender-neutral values about childcare even if they do
not carry it out equally: ‘most people of Europe believe that childcare
is basically a nonspecific task: both mother and father are expected to
carry out childrearing’ (Fahey and Spéder 2004: 60). Korean mothers
interviewed by Won (2007) described childcare as a state of war.
The evidence above is of low social spending on childcare and
early education in some East Asian countries, especially Korea and
Japan. It is also of great distance from defamilization: ‘the degree to
156
Weeks
104
0.0
52
D
enm
arkIceland
France
Sw
eden
Finland*
Belgium
N
orway
H
ungary
Italy
U
nited
Kingdom
C
zech
R
epublic
N
etharlands
Spain
Slovak
R
epublic
Portugal
Luxem
bourg
Australia
G
erm
any
Japan
Austria
Poland
Ireland
Sw
itzarland
Korea
KK
C
anada
G
reece
FTE Paid LeaveUnpaid leave
Figure 1.10 Parental leave, weeks, OECD Family Database, 2010
Source: Gender Brief OECD (2010).
20 Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
which households’ welfare and caring responsibilities are relaxed’
(Lister 1997: 172). There is little relaxation of pressures on mothers
and families through social spending, with very high pressures indicated
through very low birth rates. There is also evidence of very little
sharing between men and women in households, as shown in the
next section.
Time
Unpaid work is one measure of men’s responsibility for childcare.
Everywhere, men’s contribution to unpaid work is lower than women’s:
Figure 1.11 shows men in Japan making the lowest contribution.
In Korea, the pattern is similar to Japan, with men spending around a
fifth of the time spent by women on unpaid work: 3 per cent of their
day, compared with women’s 14 per cent in 2004 (An 2010). In China,
gender differences are less extreme, as shown in Figure 1.11, but men
spent under 100 minutes per day, more like other East Asian countries
than Norway, France or Germany (OECD 2012 a, b, c).
Minutes
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
N
orw
ay
C
hina
U
nited
States
France
JapanG
erm
anyO
EC
D
26
PolandAustralia
Portugal
Turkey
0
MenWomen ( )
Figure 1.11 Minutes of unpaid work per day, 1999–2009
Source: Gender Initiative (OECD 2012b).
Gender and Welfare States in East Asia 21
One way to understand the time men give to unpaid work is to explore
the time given to paid work. Comparative data about working time, show
South Korea’s position at the top of the league for average working time,
with Japan above the OECD average, while the Netherlands, Germany,
Norway and France are at the bottom. South Korea’s lead in this respect
is distinctive, with working hours more like much less developed countries
(BBC/OECD 2012).
Long working hours are a feature for men and women in East Asia, and
a part of the climate in which unpaid care work is difficult to manage and
difficult to share. The picture above of average working hours conceals
variation: between men and women, full-timers and part-times, with a
variety of working time regimes across countries. Recorded long working
hours in Japan are near the high end of the international spectrum,
with around 60 per cent of employed men and nearly 20 per cent of
employed women working more than 45 hours per week. Japan also has
few part-time workers, either male or female (OECD 2007: 19):
While hours recorded in these comparative data are high, there is
room to question whether – in the long hours culture in East Asia –
the real picture is of even longer hours, putting pressure on men and
women to show commitment through staying at their desks. Korean
respondents felt pressured to work beyond the legal limit. Male respondents
described this as putting care out of the question (Won 2007).
There is much to be said for a shorter working week, but if it applies
to women or to mothers rather than to men or to fathers, then this
80
70
60
Men Women
50
40
30
20
10
0
Netherlands
Norway
Luxem
bourg
Austria
Switzerland
G
erm
any
Canada
Belgium
Sweden
lgiu
g
Finland
Hungary
France
Ireland
Slovak
Republic
Czech
Republic
Denm
ark
Spain
Portugal
United
States
O
ECD
average
Poland
United
Kingdom
Italy
Australia
New
Zealand
Japan
Iceland
G
reece
M
exico
Turkey
Figure 1.12 Percentage of employees who work more than 45 hours per week,
years around 2002
Source: OECD Factbook 2007.
22 Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
may bring gender inequality, and high risks for mothers when marriages
break down. There seem to be few debates in East Asia about reducing
working hours, or even applying existing legislation on working hours:
the chapter by Kimio Ito on Culture includes a discussion of the impact
of Japan’s working hours culture on men’s ability to spend time on families
and communities. In Europe, most policy debates have been about
making women’s lives more like men’s. Sweden is the most gender-equal
country, and has achieved this through high social support and spending
on childcare, underpinning women’s labour market participation in as
continuous a manner as found anywhere. Making men’s lives more like
women’s is an alternative, advocated by Fraser’s ‘Universal Caregiver’
model, in which both men and women are assumed to have care responsibilities
and to need time to care (Fraser 1997). The 35-hour week in
France brings more gender equality of working time than elsewhere in
Western Europe, while allowing time for care. Research suggests that
both mothers and fathers in France are able to spend more time with
their children since this legislation (Fagnani and Letablier 2006). There
is also evidence of preferences in Europe for more equal working time,
with the current French model not far from widespread preferences in
Europe (Fagan and Warren 2001).
Power
Representation in democratic processes and institutions is only the most
visible and countable form of power. Power also exists in communities,
workplaces and families. It may be expressed as violence against women
in households (see Leung Lai Ching in Chapter 6) as well as in the legislature.
Power may be overt, but hidden assumptions may hold more
power than public debates (Lukes 1974). The assumptions underpinning
Confucian culture may be a potent force against gender equality
in households as well as in public representation and participation. If
representation in participatory democracies is an inadequate indicator
of power in societies, the indication it gives is of gender inequality in
those decision-making bodies that make the rules for the rest.
Women’s political representation in most countries is well below the
50 per cent which might be expected if power were distributed equally
between men and women: Japan is at the far end of the spectrum of
OECD countries, with – as shown in Figure 1.13 – well under 15 per cent
of parliamentary seats held by women. Taiwan has a complex quota
system with nearly 25 per cent women members (OECD, Matland 2006:
286–289) (Figure 1.13).
Gender and Welfare States in East Asia 23
At the opposite end of this spectrum are Sweden, at 45 per cent, with
Iceland and Finland following close behind. We might ask why these
East Asian countries have so little room for women in parliamentary
politics, with what implications, and are there prospects for increasing
this? We would argue that the small minority of women in public decision-making
positions undermines women’s representation and the
representation of core issues for women, such as gendered expectations
of care. Women’s political representation in national parliaments has
been shown to relate positively to their level of employment, education
compared with men, length of time since enfranchisement, secularization,
social democratic political parties and electoral systems based
on proportional representation. But even where women’s employment,
education and mobilization have brought steady improvements in
representation, these have not brought parity with men. Increasingly
women’s low level of political representation is being targeted by quotas
(Dahlerup 2006, 2007).
Can these low levels of representation in parliamentary politics be
understood as women’s choices? There may be a case for this in East
Asian countries, in the context of Confucian cultural values encouraging
women to be obedient rather than dominant. But accumulated
%
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
10
15
5
N
orw
ay
C
hina
U
nited
States
France
JapanG
erm
anyO
EC
D
26
Poland
Australia
Portugal
Turkey
0
19952011 ( )
Figure 1.13 Share of women in parliament, 1995 and 2011
Source: OECD Gender Initiative (OECD 2012c).
24 Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
(Western) research evidence suggests that discriminatory processes are
more important (Phillips 1991). Scandinavian countries have achieved
high levels of women’s representation through long political work to
increase the acceptability of women in politics and decrease the acceptability
of men’s over-representation. But arguments for equality as
parity, rather than as equality of opportunity, have brought campaigns
for quotas, which make a direct assault on discriminatory electoral processes,
and hope to reduce the time lag between women’s suffrage and
their full representation in representative parliaments. In some countries
(e.g. Rwanda), these have lifted women’s participation above Sweden’s
45 per cent. There seems a good case for looking at quotas in Europe as
well as in East Asia, as a means to bring representation of women, and of
issues important to women higher up the agenda, rather more quickly
than seems likely under current political conditions.
Conclusion
The chapter has asked about approaches to welfare, about the nature of East
Asian welfare states, particularly the gendered nature of East Asian welfare
states. Scholars have asked are there distinctive features of welfare systems
in East Asia as a region, an ‘East Asian welfare model’? Goodman and Peng
(1996) argued that strong reliance on non-state agencies – family, community
and firm – distinguishes this model from Western welfare regimes. A
distinctive welfare state cluster is also argued by Holliday (2000: 709): the
‘productivist world of welfare capitalism’, in which the state’s orientation is
to economic growth, with social policies subordinated to economic/industrial
objectives. Similarly, Kwon argues for the East Asian welfare system
as the ‘developmental welfare state’ (2005, 2009), in which social policy is
instrumental for economic development, for example, promoting private
sources of welfare and diverting financial resources from social insurance
to investment in infrastructure (Gough 2001). But what are the implications
of strong reliance on families and communities, the subordination
of social polices to economic ones, promoting private sources of welfare,
diverting financial resources from social insurance? In particular, what
are the implications for families, for women in families and for gender
equality? If these implications have been underplayed in the literature on
East Asian regimes, literature about gender and welfare states has tended
to neglect East Asia and the extreme position of women in East Asian
welfare and family systems. Are there differences between East and West
in family systems which put burdens on women while giving them fewer
rights? Are young women in East Asian families at the bottom of hierarchies
of decision-making and power? What are the implications of China’s
shift towards market and Confucian ideology for women, especially
Gender and Welfare States in East Asia 25
disadvantaged women? Is Confucianism a key to differences between East
and West, to understanding women’s position in employment, income,
care, time and power, with East Asian countries at extremes from the social
democracies in social spending, fertility and political participation, while
sharing economic and life expectations with the same social democracies?
The forthcoming chapters therefore address new questions about women’s
welfare, across the wide East Asian region.
The book asks about the impact of Confucian culture on gender
equality in East Asia. It begins with countries the authors see as the
most ‘Confucian’, Korea and Taiwan, where gender equality legislation
challenges, and is challenged by powerfully persistent and consistent
Confucian values. Sung examines work–family balance policies in South
Korea, asking how recent changes and policy reforms influenced women,
exploring through qualitative interviews the impact of Confucian culture
on women’s experience in reconciling work and family life. In the rather
similar environment of Taiwan, Wu asks about women’s experiences and
strategies in balancing motherhood and paid work, about changes in
gendered arrangements of family responsibilities, motherhood ideologies
and employment patterns between two generations. From the alternative
perspective of policy makers, in her qualitative interviews with Korean
civil servants, Won asks about the gap between policy rhetoric and the
reality, questioning the status of women’s bureaux in the Korean gender
regime. China may be the birthplace of Confucianism, but communism
directly challenged Confucian gender inequalities, bringing girls and
women into education and employment, with communist ideology
bringing – for nearly half a century – an environment that supported
gender equality against Confucian tradition. Using mixed methodologies,
Shang, Fisher and Guo address the gendered experiences of older disabled
people in rural China. They ask about the implications of communist
and post-1990 market reforms – a rapidly and radically changing environment
– on gender equality: did either communist or market reforms
challenge Confucian gender inequalities, creating communities in which
women and men are equally valued in both policy and practice? In particular,
they ask about the impact of communist and market reforms on this
multiply disadvantaged group: women who are old, disabled and from
rural areas. Hong Kong – facing east and west – has also absorbed a variety
of influences. Leung Lai Ching’s chapter asks about the gender mainstreaming
of domestic violence policy. She examines the gender sensitivity
and welfare orientation of government officials and frontline social
workers, exploring their attitudes towards domestic violence. In Hong
Kong, is domestic violence perceived as a family issue or a social issue, by
policy-makers and family workers? Does the Confucian welfare model act
as a barrier to the gender mainstreaming of domestic violence policy?
26 Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
Japan experiences – according to chapters by Kimio Ito and Emiko
Ochiai and Ken’ichi Johshita – a diversity of influences including Shinto,
Buddhism and Confucianism. Kimio Ito asks about the sources and nature
of a culture which put Japan so very far down the gender equality league:
98th on the Gender Gap Index in 2011. Emiko Ochiai and Ken’ichi
Johshita draw upon a content analysis of Prime Ministers’ speeches since
the 1970s to ask about the extent to which Confucianism has affected
family ideology/policy in Japan. Can the position of women in Japan be
understood as a consequence of Confucianism? Or was Confucianism
mobilized and re-shaped as an ideology to support the modern state in
the form of the ‘traditionalization of modern gender roles?’
The evidence of the comparative data above is of countries with strong
and growing economies, overtaking the Scandinavian social democracies
in women’s life expectations. But the evidence is also of East Asian
countries at the opposite pole to gender-equal social democracies, across
the range of measures of gender equality in employment, income, care,
time and power. The following chapters address key questions about the
lives and welfare of women across a wide region.
References
An, M. Y. (2010) ‘Republic of Korea: Analysis of Time Use Survey on Work and
Care’, in D. Bundler (ed.), Time Use Studies and Unpaid Care Work, London:
Routledge, pp. 118–141.
Baldock, J. (1999) ‘Culture: The Missing Variable in Understanding Social Policy?’
Social Policy and Administration, 33(4): 458–473.
BBC/OECD (2012) Average hours worked BBC News Magazine May 2012.
Chan, Chak Kwan (2011) ‘Hong Kong: Workfare in the World’s Freest Economy’,
International Journal of Social Welfare, 20: 22–32.
Chan, Kam Wah (2006) ‘Deconstructing the Asian Welfare Model: Social
Development or Risk Production?’ Paper presented at the Third East Asian Social
Policy Research Network, Bristol.
Chiu, S and Wong, V. (2005) ‘Hong Kong: from familistic to Confucian welfare’,
in A. Walker and C. K. Wong (eds), East Asian Welfare Regimes in Transition,
Bristol: Policy Press.
Clarke, J. (2004) Changing Welfare Changing States: New Directions in Social Policy,
London: Sage.
Creighton, C. (1999) ‘The Rise and Decline of the “Male Breadwinner Family in
Britain”’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 23(5): 519–541.
Dahlerup, D. (2006) Women, Quotas and Politics, London: Routledge.
Dahlerup, D. (2007) ‘Electoral Gender Quotas: Between Equality of Opportunity
and Equality of Result’, Representation, 43(2): 73–92.
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Cambridge:
Polity Press.
Esping-Andersen, G. (1999) Social Foundations of Post-industrial Economics,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fagan, C. and Warren, T. (2001) More or Less Work? Gender, Employment and
Working Time Preferences in Europe, Dublin: European Foundation on Living and
Working Conditions.
Gender and Welfare States in East Asia 27
Fahey, T. and Spéder, Zs. (2004) Fertility and Family Issues in an Enlarged Europe.
European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions,
Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications.
Fraser, N. (1997) Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the Postsocialist Condition,
London: Routledge.
Gao, Qin, Yoo, Jiyoung and Yang, Sook-Mee (2011) ‘Welfare Residualism: A
Comparative Study of the Basic Livelihood Security Systems in China and
South Korea’, International Journal of Social Welfare, 20: 113–124.
Gelb, J. (2003) Gender Policies in Japan and United States, New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Gershuny, J. (2000) Changing Times: Work and Leisure in Post-Industrial Society,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goodman, R. and Peng, I. (1996) ‘The East Asian Welfare State’, in G. EspingAndersen
(ed.), Welfare State in Transition, London: Sage.
Gough, I. (2001) ‘Globalization and Regional Welfare Regimes: The East Asian
Case’, Global Social Policy, 1(2): 163–189.
Holliday, I. (2000) ‘Productivist Welfare Capitalism: Social Policy in East Asia’,
Political Studies, 48: 706–723.
Holliday, I. (2005) ‘East Asian Social Policy in the Wake of the Financial Crisis:
Farewell to Productivism’? Policy and Politics, 33(1): 145–162.
Huang, Chien-Chung and Ku, Yeun-Wen (2011) ‘Effectiveness of Social Welfare
Programmes in East Asia: A case study of Taiwan’, Social Policy and Administration,
45(7): 733–751.
Jones, C. (1993) ‘The Pacific Challenge: Confucian Welfare States’, in C. Jones
(ed.), New Perspectives on the Welfare State in Europe, London: Routledge.
Kim, J. A. (2008) ‘Reduced Working Hours and Work-Family Balance’, Gender
Review, 10: 57–62.
Kwon, H. J. (2005) ‘Transforming the Developmental Welfare State in East Asia’,
Development and Change, 36(3): 477–497.
Kwon, H. J. (2009) ‘The Reform of the Developmental Welfare State in East Asia’,
International Journal of Social Welfare, 18: S12–S21.
Lambert, P. A. (2007) ‘The Political Economy of Post-war Family Policy in Japan:
Economic Imperatives and Electoral Incentives’, Journal of Japanese Studies,
33(1), Society for Japanese Studies.
Lee, J.-K. (2005) ‘Neo-Familism and Women: The Modern Transformation of
the Korean Family’, in P. Chang and E. S. Kim (eds), Women’s Experiences and
Feminist Practices in South Korea, Seoul: Ewha Women’s University Press.
Lewis, J. (1992) ‘Gender and the Development of Welfare Regimes’, Journal of
European Social Policy, 2(3), 159–173.
Lewis, J. (1997) ‘Gender and Welfare Regimes: Further Thoughts, Social Politics,
4(2): 160–177.
Lewis, J. (2001) ‘The Decline of the Male Breadwinner Model: the Implications for
Work and Care’, Social Politics, 8(2): 152–170.
Lewis, J. (2006) ‘Gender and Welfare in Modern Europe’, Past and Present,
Supplement 1: 39–54.
Lin, J.-P. and Yi, C.-C. (2011) ‘Filial Norms and Intergenerational Support to
Aging Parents in China and Taiwan’, International Journal of Social Welfare, 20:
S109–S120.
Lister, R. (1997) Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Lukes, S. (1974) Power: A Radical View, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Macpherson, S. (1993) ‘Social Security in Hong Kong’, Social Policy and
Administration, 27(1): 50–57.
28 Sirin Sung and Gillian Pascall
Matland, R. E. (2006) ‘Electoral Quotas: Frequency and Effectiveness’, in Dahlerup,
D. (ed.), Women, Quotas and Politics, London: Routledge, pp. 275–292.
OECD (2006) Starting Strong II: Early Childhood Education and Care, OECD
publishing.
OECD Factbook 2007.
OECD Government at a glance 2009.
OECD (2010) Gender Brief: Prepared by the OECD Social Policy Division, www.
oecd.org/els/social.
OECD Factbook 2011a.
OECD (2011) Doing Better for Families.
OECD (2012a) Social Expenditure Database.
OECD (2012b) Gender Initiative: 8 Key Indicators.
OECD (2012c) Social Spending after the Crisis.
OECD Health Data 2011 www.oecd.org/dataoecd/22/36/47697608.pdf
Oorschot, W.V. (2007) ‘Culture and Social Policy: A Developing Field of Study’,
International Journal of Social Welfare, 16: 129–139.
Orloff, A. (1993) ‘Gender and the Social Rights of Citizenship: the Comparative
Analysis of State Policies and Gender Relations’, American Sociological Review,
58(3): 303–328.
Palley, M. L. and Gelb, J. (1992) Women of Japan and Korea, Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
Pascall, G. and Lewis, J. (2004) ‘Emerging Gender Regimes and Policies for Gender
Equality in a Wider Europe’, Journal of Social Policy, 33(3): 373–394.
Pascall, G. and Sung, S. (2007) ‘Gender and East Asian Welfare States: from
Confucianism to Gender Equality?’, Paper presented at the Annual Conference
of East Asian Social Policy Research Network, Tokyo, October, 2007.
Pfau-Effinger, B. (1999) ‘Change of Family Policies in the Socio-Cultural Context
of European Societies’, Comparative Social Research, 18: 135–139.
Pfau-Effinger, B. (2005) ‘Culture and welfare state policies: Reflections on a
complex interrelation’, Journal of Social Policy, 34(1): 3–20.
Phillips, A. (1991) Engendering Democracy, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Reiger, E. and Leibfried, S. (2003) Limits to Globalization: Welfare States and the
World Economy, Cambridge: The Polity Press.
Stadelmann-Steffen, I. (2008) ‘Women, Labour and Public Policy: Female Labour
Market Integration in OECD Countries, A Comparative Perspective’, Journal of
Social Policy, 37(3): 383–408.
Sung, S. (2003) ‘Women Reconciling Paid and Unpaid Work in The Confucian
Welfare State: The Case of South Korea’, Social Policy and Administration, 37(4):
342–360.
Takao, Y. (2007) ‘Japanese Women in Grassroots Politics: Building a Gender-Equal
Society from the Bottom Up’, The Pacific Review, 20(2): 147–172.
Walker, A. and Wang, C. K. (eds) (2005) East Asian Welfare Regimes in Transition:
From Confucianism to Globalization, Bristol: The Policy Press.
Won, S. Y. (2007) ‘Institutionalised Powerlessness? The Reality of Women’s Policy
Units and their Gendered Dynamics in Korea’, Journal of Social Policy, 36(part 2):
261–278.
Won, S. Y. and Pascall, G. (2004) ‘A Confucian War over Childcare? Practice
and Policy in Childcare and Their Implications for Understanding the Korean
Gender Regime’, Social Policy and Administration, 38(3): 270–289.
Wu, Shu-yun (Jessie) (2007) Motherhood: Negotiating Paid Work and Care – A
Comparative Study Between Two Different Generations in Taiwan.
Ye, Lin. (2011) ‘Demographic Transition, Developmentalism and Social Security
in China’, Social Policy and Administration, 45(6): 678–693.
29
Introduction
Work–family balance has become a key issue since the late 1980s in
Korea as a result of women’s increasing participation in the labour
market. There have been some cultural shifts in relation to gender
roles in combination with economic and political changes. In particular,
the traditional idea of ‘the man as head of the family’ has recently
been challenged, leading to the 2008 reform of family law (Kim 2008).
In spite of these recent changes, the notion that the gendered division
of labour in the Korean family has shifted from a traditional to an
egalitarian model is highly questionable. To explore this, the chapter
asks to what extent recent policy changes have influenced women’s
experiences in reconciling paid and unpaid work in practice. It
discusses women’s views on their responsibility for unpaid care work,
including childcare and eldercare, and on the effectiveness of work–
family balance policies. Gender imbalance in unpaid care work is not
peculiar to Korean society, as it exists in the most egalitarian countries
in Europe such as the Scandinavian countries. However, Korean
women may encounter particular difficulties because of their special
responsibilities for their parents-in-law embedded in the Confucian
value system. Therefore, this chapter examines the recent changes in
work–family balance policies in Korea, and it argues that in order to
make the policies effective there must be cultural shifts in relation to
gender roles.
2
Work–Family Balance Issues and
Policies in Korea: Towards an
Egalitarian Regime?
Sirin Sung