20-30대 비혼 여성의 고용 불안 현실과 선택

Abstract

This paper is a narrative reconstruction of the Korean single women in their 20's-30's, who may have to reconcile the unstable employment careers, life styles, and forced delay of intimacies. Major focus is directed on the results of their conflict ridden life choices on the implications of gender relations. In order to do this, this study conducted in-depth interviews on 11 single women living in Seoul metropolitan areas. All the interviewees were found to postpone their intimacy needs due to short unstable employment after graduation and anxieties on their life prospects including birth giving, chid care, and disruptions of their careers. Paradoxically, they are always struggling to their work in order to be relieved of their hard pressed stresses on marriage and child bearing. Social, economic background of the families also played important role in affecting women's choices on their life strategies. While upper middle class women are more prone to be depending on their parents deferring their marriage, lower middle class women may have to pass through various kinds of unstable jobs. Providing young women stable work and social conditions motivating them to work-family balance were found to be essential conditions. In so far as those conditions may not exist, young women may have to maintain single lives, postponing marriage, or stick to alternative intimacy with their parents or friends.