일제 총동원체제하‘가사사용인’ 억제 정책과‘식모난(食母難)’

Abstract

This study examines the policies of the Government-General of Korea aimed at suppressing domestic service labor under the wartime regime of late colonial Korea and the implications of the resulting “maid shortage” for women of that time. With the intensification of the total mobilization system in the late 1930s, the Japanese colonial authorities classified domestic service labor as “non-essential and non-urgent” work, viewing it as a sector that required restrictions on labor force entry. The formal suppression of domestic service labor began with the nationalization of employment agencies in 1940 and escalated with measures such as the cessation of "household worker placement" services at public employment agencies in 1943, the imposition of special taxes on employing domestic workers, and the denial of rural women's residence permits to curb labor migration. These measures drove the employment of domestic workers out of the formal sector. However, the demand for domestic workers persisted, intensifying the “maid shortage,” particularly among Korean households in urban areas. This situation was not advantageous for Korean women seeking employment either. Poor women who had left rural areas found their opportunities for legal and formal employment significantly diminished. As a result, the conditions of women—desperate enough to accept distant employment opportunities amidst wartime mobilization policies—deteriorated further. This also foreshadowed that the temporary coercion, which had suppressed domestic service labor and blocked their supply routes, would inevitably lead to a resurgence in the number of domestic workers once these constraints were lifted.