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To working wives, the newly introduced five-workday
week represents more than just precious time to enhance their
quality of life. Ambushed in the five-day week is more household
labor, meaning that without addressing this issue, there will
only be more 'work' for women, just in a different place.
According to the <Economic Assessment and Policy Initiative
Regarding Unpaid Women's Labor> published by the Korea
Women's Development Institute, wives handle much more household
chores than their husbands, and whether wives have jobs or
not does not have a big effect on their share of household
labor.
The daily average time spent on household chores is two hours
50 minutes for working women, and five hours 13 minutes for
fulltime housewives. In contrast, working men spend 26 minutes
a day on household chores and those with no jobs spend 53
minutes. So working women spend about two hours more each
day than their male counterparts doing household chores. This
shows that even women who are economically active are not
spared much from household labor whereas men are not actively
involved in homemaking regardless of whether they have jobs
or not.
As the total time spent working (household labor + "real"
work) for working wives is significantly longer than for men,
national policies are needed to reduce homemaking time for
women. Furthermore, since homemaking time does not decrease
in proportion to more time spent on the job, the total work
time is even longer for women with long working hour jobs.
For example, a woman who has to be at her job 54 hours a week
spends 2 hours 24 minutes everyday doing household chores,
meaning that her total work time is about 11 hours. The amount
of time a man with the same working hours spends on household
chores is a mere 24 minutes a day.
A thesis by Lee Ki Young entitled <International Comparison
of Citizen's Time Usage,> written in 2001, shows clearly
the great burden that Korean working wives have to bear in
terms of household labor.
According to the thesis, Korean working wives spend an average
of 538 minutes a day on economic and household activities
altogether. Their American counterparts spent 450 minutes
and their Finnish counterparts 465, which are about one-and-a-half
hours less. Japanese working wives spend 48 minutes less than
the Koreans. Although Japanese wives spend 19 more minutes
than Korean wives on household chores alone, the time they
spend on the job is shorter, making Korean wives' total work
time the longest among the countries surveyed. This is probably
due to the fact that a lot of Japanese wives work part-time
whereas a lot of Korean wives work full-time. Overall, Korean
working wives work the longest hours among the 12 groups from
the four countries in the study. These women have total work
hours that are more than twice the amount of time American
full-time housewives spend on household chores.
On the other hand, the total work time for Korean men is
not very high, despite the fact that they have relatively
long working hours compared to their counterparts in other
countries. This is because of the little amount of time they
spend on household chores. The total work time for Korean,
American and Finnish men are similar, recording 456, 452 and
453 minutes respectively. Japanese men spend less time working
compared to other male groups in the study.
All in all, women, regardless of employment status, face discrimination
in terms of the time allowed for self-realization, thanks
to the burden of household chores.
According to the <1999 Report on Time Usage> published
by the National Statistical Office, the time spent on social
and leisure activities is only 17 minutes longer for men than
women on weekdays, but the difference increases through the
week to a 35-minute gap on Saturdays and a one-hour-23-minute
gap on Sundays.
This means that on Sundays, when there should generally be
more leisure time, the time women have to spend looking after
the home and family decreases only slightly, or even increases
in some cases. In contrast, the time men spend working drops
significantly in the weekend, to be replaced by socializing
and leisure, showing a distinct gender gap.ˇ´refer to Table
3ˇµ
Comments Researcher Moon, "With the growing importance
of the knowledge industry, policies aimed at developing human
resources to enhance national competitiveness are a must.
But the gender gap in time spent on human resource development
affects not only today's generation but future generations
as well." Moon points out that since the total work time
(household labor + market labor) is about an hour longer for
working wives than working men, working wives have relatively
more difficulty investing time in human resource development.
Adds Moon, "The gender gap existing in the time spent
on socializing and leisure, which widens towards the weekend,
is expected to widen even more with the introduction of the
five-day week. The five-day week could well be the start of
more household labor time for working wives."
For working women to be able to devote their spare time on
studying and training to increase their value as human resources,
there is a need for more than plans to share their burden
of household labor; we need to nurture a climate that encourages
human resources development for women.
<reported by Dong Sung-hye dong@womennews.co.kr>
The Ministry of Gender Equality is accepting 'applications
for redress of gender discrimination' as well as funding some
10 billion Won to women starting their own business.
According to the Ministry, applications from the metropolitan
area accounted for 59% (80 cases) of the total applications
(136) filed with the Ministry's Gender Discrimination Redress
Center. But applicants living outside the Metropolitan area
faced greater inconveniences due to distance. Thus the Ministry
has revealed plans to "overcome the disadvantage of distance
by accepting faxed applications, conducting local survey trips,
and making online applications possible in the near future."
The Ministry is also going to support businesswomen by providing
loans up to 100 million Won at a low interest rate of 4.5%.
Those eligible for the loan are women who attended the employment
or business courses provided by the Korea Women's Development
Institute, have more than 2 years' experience in the cultural
or IT industry, or achieved state-approved certificates for
manufacturing or service skills. To encourage new businesses,
however, the loans are limited to those who have business
registrations that were issued less than a year ago.
The Ministry points out that startup funds provided through
women's welfare policies target female breadwinners, leaving
out single women and fulltime housewives. Also, it is difficult
for businesswomen to get bank loans that require creditworthiness
or security. Thus the financing provided by the Ministry this
time is for women with professional skills rather than for
unemployed female breadwinners or women in the low income
class.
Applications for startup funding will start on March 3 at
each district's Small Business Support Center, and the Ministry
is planning to set up a separate selection committee to manage
the 10 billion Won worth of funds and to select recipients.
<reported by Shin Ah-Ryeung arshin@womennews.co.kr>
 Lee
Kim Hyun-Sook / representative of Women Making Peace
I attended the working-level meeting for the Inter-Korean
Joint Festivities, held in Pyongyang from January 21 to 25,
as the women's committee chair of the Joint Festivities Steering
Committee (made up of the Korean Council for Reconciliation
and Cooperation, seven religious organizations and the Reunification
Alliance). Through these working-level talks, the two Koreas
have agreed to hold jointly organized events this year to
commemorate the third anniversary of the June 15 Joint Declaration,
Liberation Day, and Korea Foundation Day, in the agreed city
of Seoul or Pyongyang. Participants also agreed to hold the
'March 1 National Rally for Peace and Reunification' on March
1 in Seoul. (translator's note: March 1 is a national holiday
to commemorate the fight for independence from Japanese colonial
rule.)
Negotiations for this event started with the seven religious
organizations in South Korea inviting religious organizations
in North Korea to the international religious ceremony scheduled
for March. And the final product of the negotiations was a
jointly organized event on March 1. The event will be organized
by the religious groups in the two Koreas, and North Korea
will be sending a sizeable delegation to attend the event.
As for sectional events (for women, workers, farmers, youths),
no tangible agreements were reached except for evaluating
last year's events and discussing this year's plans. However,
the two Koreas reaffirmed their commitment to further working-level
meetings to ensure that sectional events come to bear fruit.
Our visit to Pyongyang was filled with more tension than
on any other occasion, probably because it took place in the
midst of mounting nuclear disputes between Pyongyang and Washington
and the threat of war on the Korean peninsula. But while we
were in Pyongyang, inter-Korean Ministerial-level talks and
talks for the linking of North and South by road and railway
were being held in Seoul and Pyongyang respectively, giving
us a thread of hope in this time of crisis.
On the morning of the 21st, just when we were about to board
the Koryo airline plane bound for Pyongyang, we spotted Mr.
Baek Moon Gil (an officer with the North Korean Council for
Reconciliation and Cooperation whom we'd met several times)
on his way to attend the meetings in Seoul. Seeing him was
a great relief to us, as it was proof that the two Koreas
were moving back and forth between Seoul and Pyongyang to
build the bridge for peace and reconciliation in spite of
the troubled times. Also waiting for the Pyongyang-bound plane
with us were many other South Koreans involved in humanitarian
aid to North Korea, namely Koreans Helping Each Other, Neighborly
Love Society and the National Teachers' Union.
We were told that the cold had lost its bite in Pyongyang.
But the next day's weather was very cold. We saw more automobiles
and people on the streets of Pyongyang compared to our last
visit (in July 2000). Perhaps because there is no work in
the winter? All our rooms in the Koryo Hotel had electric
heaters, so the cold was no concern when indoors.
But the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital and Good Will Hospital
that we visited between meetings were exposed to the harsh
weather. The Good Will Hospital in particular - even though
it was a hospital designated for foreigners - was so cold
that we might as well have been standing outdoors,. Each room
had an electric heater, but all the doctors, nurses and patients
were shivering with cold.
Even the famous Pyongyang Maternity Hospital was evidently
short of medicine and medical equipment. North Korea's food
and energy shortage was truly threatening the lives of the
people in the winter. We also got to travel to Sariwon, and
the further we got from Pyongyang, the worse the houses and
people looked.
It was a replica of the harsh winters after the Korean War
that we experienced in our childhood. It seemed heartless
and immoral for South Korea to be hoarding so much rice (about
50 million bushels in reserve as of the end of 2002) and squandering
more than 50 billion Won a year in storage costs and still
showing reluctance to provide food aid to the North. This
was the Korean division in life.
Despite pitifully deteriorating living conditions, the North
Korean officials' attitude towards the nuclear standoff with
the US was resolute. The North brought in higher-ranking officials
than we had anticipated to our civilian talks (Kim Young Dae,
Ahn Kyong Ho, Jang Jae Un, Jun Kum Chol). The officials took
pains to explain North Korea's position on the nuclear issue
and to listen to South Korea's opinion and advice.
During the group discussions, Jun Kum Jin (Vice president
of the Committee for National Peace and Reunification) attended
the meetings with the Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation,
women and youths. Jang Jae Un (North Korean Red Cross) attended
the religious organizations' meetings, and Ahn Kyong Ho the
meetings with the Reunification Alliance, workers and farmers.
The North Korean officials stayed throughout the lengthy discussions
and even had their meals with the South Korean delegation.
The North Koreans mainly talked about how the US's anti-North
Korea policies (such as the 'axes of evil' speech and talk
of a preemptive nuclear attack) were the cause of the present
nuclear dispute, why a North Korea-US treaty of nonaggression
that is legally binding is the solution to the current crisis,
and how North Korea's abandoning the nuclear freeze is to
generate power, not to threaten the South.
In response, we relayed the concerns and opinions of the
South Korean civil society. We explained points such as the
problem with Pyongyang's NCND policy since Bush's Envoy James
Kelly announcement of Pyongyang's admission to nuclear development,
the need to consider other alternatives besides a nonaggression
treaty, the fact that time is of the essence in this crisis,
and the reasoning that the US's hostility comes from a deep
mistrust regarding North Korea, which in turn stems from the
mistrust for North Korea's unique system. We touched on many
sensitive issues in the entire discussion, but the North Korean
officials listened earnestly, commenting that what we were
saying was reasonable or useful as a point of reference.
North Korea's attitude was very different from the stance
it took during the 1994 nuclear crisis, when it adhered to
a 'dialogue-with-Washington-containment-of-Seoul' policy and
totally ignored the South Korean government. North Korea's
changed attitude was a reflection of how much inter-Korean
relations have changed since the June 15 Joint Declaration
in 2000.
North Korea has become quite flexible, and seemed well aware
of the need for South Korea's cooperation.
In the midst of a brewing nuclear crisis, civilian exchanges
are continuing to bridge the two Koreas and pave the way for
peace and reconciliation. As long as the Joint Festivities
and humanitarian aid organized by civilians continue, North
and South Korea will be pulling down the wall of prejudice
and widening the horizon of national reconciliation, little
by little.
We must remember that sending food and our love to the starving
children and expecting mothers of North Korea is the most
powerful way to melt down even the nuclear crisis.
(The Women's News http://www.womennews.co.kr)
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