What ‘girl power’ means in the job market

SOHN HAE-YONG
The author is a business news editor of the JoongAng Ilbo.

Women in their 30s are going strong in the domestic job market. As of September, the employment rate of women in their 30s is 68.8 percent, the highest in history. In other words, two in three women in their 30s have a job. This is a 7.5 percentage-point increase from September 2021 during the pandemic. In 2010, the employment rate of women in the 30s was 54 percent. After the figure surpassed 60 percent in 2017 for the first time, it has only gained momentum.

This can be contributed to the lesser impact of marriage and childbirth on women’s economic activities. Last year, the total fertility rate — or the average number of children born to a woman in her reproductive years — was just 0.78, the lowest in history. The number of births has since declined. It has become common for even women with children to continue their work, along with their husband. Last year, 54.2 percent of women in the age group — the highest ever — were dual-income earners with their spouse.

The aging population is another factor. As the elderly population increases, so does the demand for elderly care. So many women in their 30s are employed in health and welfare fields such as nursing care and social work. In addition, there is an impact of thinning gender boundaries for jobs.

Some demographers do not gladly welcome the transition. They argue that unless women stop working, the birth rate would continue to decline. In other words, they claim that women in their 30s gave up families for work, and, as a result, Korea has the world’s lowest birth rate.

But the cases of developed countries point in the opposite direction. According an analysis by the Economist based on reports by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research and OECD statistics, developed countries with a higher employment rate of women showed lower birth rates in the 1980s. But the trend reversed in the 2000s. For instance, the U.S. birth rate was 1.75 in the 1980s, when the female employment rate was just above 60 percent. But the rate jumped to 2.1 in 2000, when their employment rate had risen 17 percent. The magazine concluded that the birth rate went up as it became easier economically and socially for women to work and be a mother at the same time.

In the Korean job market, “girl power” is a constant now. Though it has improved from the past, Korean women are still made to choose between work and family. They should be freed from having to make a choice. Only then can women get married, have children and raise them while working. This is a solution to rescue our low birth rate from the population cliff — and one of a few alternatives to ensure sustainability in a super-aged society.