Social Expectations, Personal Values, and Women’s Role in South Korea1

Abstract

This exploratory study considers the difference between personal and perceived societal values related to South Korean women’s role in the home, workplace, and society using eight items asked on the Korean Academic Multimode Open Survey (KAMOS), May-July 2017. Factor analysis showed that these eight items could be grouped into two categories: women’s role in her family and women’s in the outside world. Of the 2,000 respondents, 54.1% personally agreed that “Both the husband and wife should contribute to their family income.” People in their 30s felt the largest gap between their personal and societal values; women also felt a larger gap than men. Those who watched television more were generally more conservative than those who used the Internet more. People who felt a smaller gap between societal and personal values were more likely to feel proud to be a Korean citizen. People who believe that it is better not to marry felt a bigger gap between some societal and personal values on items relating to whether a wife should work, whether a woman’s housework or paid job is more valuable, and whether women’s job performance is equal to men’s. People who believe that divorce is sometimes acceptable were also more likely to feel a bigger difference in two items: the item about job performance and an item about whether a married woman’s social status is dependent on her husband’s.

Keywords

• gender roles
• KAMOS
• Korean Academic Multimode Open Survey
• South Korea