Gender Division of Childcare and the Social Investment Approach to Welfare State in South Korea

Objectives: This article queries the gender division of childcare and its relation to the social investment approach taken by South Korea’s welfare state. Methods: We conducted descriptive and regression analysis of data on married men and women aged between 20 and 64, drawn from the 2014 Korean Time Use Survey. We distinguished learningrelated from physical childcare. Results: Wives’ share of childcare was three times larger than husbands’. Relative income exerted the most powerful influence on childcare for both. For men, the effect of income was important for physical care but had a weak influence on learning-related care. In contrast, for women, the effect of income was the most important factor in both types of childcare. Conclusion: Results suggest that married women’s economic bargaining power over the division of childcare is strong in Korea. We claim that the Korean welfare state’s social investment approach has strengthened the caregiving role of women by enabling them to exert their economic bargaining power over the division of childcare. This effect might be context-specific, however, and we suggest the effect of the social investment approach on gender relations depends on the socioeconomic cultural, labor market and welfare regime context. KCI Citation Count: 2