Determinants of Female Labor Force Participation in South Korea: Tracing out the U-shaped Curve by Economic Growth

This paper attempts to investigate the structural relationship between economic growth and female labor force participation in Korea. The recurring issue of whether women’s integration to the society is critical becomes salient once again, but with little consideration of its meaning and potential consequences. It extends further the research theme that the degree of female labor force participation relies on the extent to which social context is reflected in the time-series data for the country from 1980 to 2014. While multiple theories are being espoused in this research, effects traced across levels of analysis and over substantial temporality lead up to a system of dynamic causal relationships, using contingency table and log-linear analysis. It appears to be supported in the regression analysis that the country travels through the U-shaped curve over time whereas income inequality displays greater impact on women’s employment. The empirical estimates of social transformation credit this trend to family structure and wife’s education, as the second pivot that, at least, noneconomic causal factors are also operative.