Sex/Gender Differences in Work and Pathways to Parenthood in Industrialized Economies

Abstract

Many industrialized societies have below-replacement fertility rates and many of their governments have made fertility promotion an objective in their policy. South Korea, the context of two of my three studies, has the lowest fertility rate in the world. A deeper understanding of pathways into parenthood and parental leave policy from a South Korean context may provide insights as to how to address the problems of declining fertility and gender inequality in South Korea and other industrialized societies. Moreover, stubborn sex/gender differences in parental leave usage and labor force participation rates raise the question as to whether we might be overlooking some important element in our conceptualization of the work and parenting behaviors of men and women. Studies A, B, and C of my dissertation sought to answer these questions. Study A seeks to examine the association between socioeconomic status of men and women and their lifetime fertility or childlessness. This study used data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA), Wave 1 collected in 2006. Results showed that, for men, education, employment, and income were significantly positively associated having a child/children, whereas no significant association was found among women. The findings imply that in South Korea, men who have difficulty bearing the normative expectation of financial responsibility of fatherhood tend not to have children. Study B is a theoretical discussion paper, where I applied a biological/evolutionary framework to understanding the sex/gender differences in parental leave and labor force participation behaviors. The refractory nature of gender gaps in parental leave and labor force participation statistics raises the question as to whether the current dominant conceptualization of gender gaps needs to be reexamined. Application of biological/evolutionary thinking reveals that it can contribute to explaining the stubborn nature of the sex differences in work and parenting behaviors. This paper illustrates how, and under what circumstances, the biological/evolutionary framework can be applicable in discussions around sex/gender gaps in work and parenting behaviors, with rudimentary policy idea examples, and can be helpful for thinking about what each society is willing to give up for sex/gender equality. Study C is a policy case study on parental leave in the context of South Korea. Based on the idea that policy making is a political process where values clash, this policy case study is an attempt to uncover the assumptions behind the arguments for two parental leave policy alternatives in South Korea. The data sources from which to infer values and assumptions were official documents and public comments on the National Assembly website. The data were analyzed using a constant comparison method. The findings can be summarized in three points. First, the narratives around parental leave were gendered. Second, there appeared to be competing narratives about fathers’ motivation for childrearing. Third, philosophical tensions between equality and individual choice were apparent in the discourse around parental leave policies. I anticipate that my dissertation makes a unique contribution to advancing knowledge about sex/gender differences in work and pathways to parenthood in industrialized economies. By elucidating the normative expectations of fatherhood, bringing to the foreground biological sex differences in work and parenting behaviors, and highlighting the narratives around parental leave policies that have been overlooked, the findings and discussions of these three studies provide implications for how South Korea and other industrialized societies around the world could approach the issues of low fertility and sex/gender differences in work and parenting behaviors.