[Inside Chodong] Overcoming the Low-Growth Crisis with Wiminomics

[Image source=Yonhap News]

"If you want to reduce the wage gap between men and women, you need to give the problem an accurate name. The name of this problem is 'Greedy work.'

Claudia Goldin, a professor at Harvard University who broke the glass ceiling by winning this year's Nobel Prize in Economics, criticizes in her book Career and Family that although we live in an era where economic equality between men and women has been achieved like never before, the gender income gap still persists. She points out the companies responsible for the problem, suggests adding one more woman to the board of directors, and considers solutions such as a few progressive male executives in the tech industry taking parental leave. However, she does not hesitate to deliver a direct blow, saying these measures are like offering a band-aid to someone suffering from the Black Death. Based on long-term time series data spanning over a century, she analyzes women's labor participation in U.S. economic history and insists that to solve the unresolved wage gap issue today, we must confront the structure of our labor and caregiving systems.

The 'Greedy work' mentioned by Professor Goldin refers to jobs that demand long hours with relentless intensity and irregular schedules, offering high pay in return. For example, when there is a child, one spouse must be able to rush home from work if something happens at home. However, in the pursuit of higher household income, fairness between spouses is neglected, and gender equality is abandoned as well. If women did not need to be on-call for household duties, they could choose jobs that pay much higher than average in exchange for long working hours, unpredictable schedules, on-call duties after work, and frequent weekend shifts. Professor Goldin criticizes, "The current structure of labor and caregiving is a relic from the past when only men could have both a career and a family," and emphasizes that the labor and caregiving system must be reconsidered so that people can choose jobs with time flexibility rather than greedy work.

The total fertility rate in the second quarter of this year was 0.7. According to the OECD, Korea has ranked first in the gender wage gap for 26 years. Last year, Korea's gender wage gap was 31.1%, nearly double that of the United States (17%), and far exceeding the OECD average of 12% across 38 member countries. Looking at the female employment rate graph, Korea shows a pronounced 'M-shaped' curve, with the highest employment rate in the late 20s, a sharp drop in the 30s, and a rise again in the elderly 60s. This means that women in their 30s experience career interruptions, breaking the promotion ladder to become managers and executives in companies, and when they return to work, they have no choice but to lower their expectations.

Economists analyze that Wiminomics (Women + Economics) will be a breakthrough for low growth. Wiminomics, a combination of women and economics, gained attention when Keishi Matsui, chief strategist at Goldman Sachs Japan, pointed to low female economic activity as a cause of Japan's economic stagnation. Building infrastructure to support women's childbirth and childcare is the foundation for economic growth, and utilizing female labor is inevitable for growth. The Bank of Korea recently reported that if the trend of rising female economic participation continues over the next decade and the gap in economic participation rates between men and women narrows from the current 18.9 percentage points to the U.S. level of 10.5 percentage points, the labor supply is expected to increase by an average of 1.52 million people annually.

To resolve the long-standing gender wage gap in our society, the government and companies must take the lead in changing the culture. In the public sector, caregiving labor should be actively supported to reduce women's childcare burdens, and companies should consider ways to increase productivity instead of demanding 'greedy work.' Although men's participation in caregiving has significantly increased, if the social atmosphere still confines the primary caregiver role to women, all kinds of low birthrate support policies will be ineffective no matter how many are introduced.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.