22% of Married Korean Women Quit Their Jobs

Women are still quitting their jobs in Korea because of childbirth and childcare, despite many government policies such as free child care to reduce this social phenomenon. In particular, women ending their careers because of child care was most common for women in their 30s, the age of the most active period of work.

According to the Statistics of Career Discontinued Women reported on Nov. 26 by Statistics Korea, based on the results of 2014’s First Half Employment Research by Region, as of April 2.139 million married women between ages 15 to 54 quit their jobs to care for their families via marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, childcare, educating elementary school children, or caring for sick members of the family.

Twenty-two point four percent of all married women (9.561 million) quit their jobs, which was 54.9 percent of unemployed women (3.894 million). This means that over half of currently unemployed married women have stopped working by choice for family reasons.

The main reason for quitting was marriage at 41.6 percent, followed by childcare (31.7 percent), pregnancy or childbirth (22.1 percent), and elementary school children’s education (4.7 percent).

Sixty-one point two percent of married women in their 30s quit their jobs due to childbirth or childcare. This is in contrast with other age groups that showed the most common reason to be marriage.

By time, women quitting jobs after 10 to 20 years of employment ranked highest with 550,000 women in the category. The number of women quitting after five to ten years was 477,000, followed by 334,000 women at three to five years, 307,000 women at one to three years, 245,000 for less than a year, and 227,000 for over 20 years.