The number of studies on the gender division of unpaid work in East Asia has grown rapidly over the last half decade. The gender division of unpaid work, mostly housework, in South Korea (Korea) is the focus of comparative studies (Iwai, 2017; Y.-M. Kim, 2013; Oshio, Nozaki, & Kobayashi, 2013; Tsuya, Bumpass, & Choe, 2000) and, also of within-country studies (An, 2017a; S.-Y. Kim & Chin, 2014; S.-J. Kim & Kim, 2007; Oh, 2016). Gender differences in the division of domestic labor are subject to time, education, income and ideology. Human capital theory (Becker, 1964) suggests education affects employability and earning power. Evertsson and Nermo (2004) claim spouses’ levels of education are an important dimension of their relative resources. Employment determines time availability (England & Farkas, 1986), and both autonomous and relative power relations are based on material resources. Bargaining power in negotiations over who does what in the home is determined by income (Blood & Wolfe, 1960). Husbands and wives use whatever resources they have to strike the best deal and advance their self-interests. Economic dependency (Sørensen & McLanahan, 1987), or the proportion of women’s income as a contribution to family income, influences the amount of housework they do themselves, as well as their spouses’ share (Bianchi et al., 2000; Bittman, England, Sayer, Flobre, & Matheson, 2003). In contrast, the socialization-gender role attitudes thesis says people socialized to believe in gender-segregated work cling to those beliefs (Coverman, 1985). Men and women with traditional perceptions of gender roles divide unpaid work more unequally than couples whose perceptions are more progressive. Studies suggest that high-earning women and lower-earning men do not always behave rationally to reduce housework (Brines, 1994; Greenstein, 2000).

Research on the gender division of childcare is limited, but researchers have found that working hours matter more for fathers’ childcare time than for mothers’ (Bianchi, 2011; Connelly & Kimmel, 2007; Sandberg & Hofferth, 2001). While longer working hours often decrease women’s time for housework and leisure, García-Mainar, Molina, & Montuenga (2011) say that in Europe, childcare has an important investment component that requires more parental time. Sayer, Bianchi, & Robinson (2004) make the same claim in their American research. The findings of studies of the effect of income or wages are mixed. In America, higher wages decrease the amount of time that mothers but not fathers spend on childcare. Connelly and Kimmel (2007) find that higher wages make it possible for American women to negotiate childcare. In a comparative study of Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, García-Mainar et al. (2011) find childcare is subject to economic bargaining based on non-labor income; mother’s contributions to the family’s non-labor income reduces the time they spend on childcare. Raley, Bianchi and Wang (2012) say fathers’ involvement in childcare increases when their wives are employed and contribute a greater share of household income. But a study in Europe finds material resources are less relevant for gender division of childcare (Maassen van den Brink & Groot, 1997).

Korean scholars have tested various theses to determine the effect of bargaining power and gender display. However, most of these apply to America and their applicability to the Korean context is debatable. In addition, Korean findings are inconsistent, not least because the samples are different, ranging from all married families to dual earner families. Further, the independent variables included in the regressions vary and are measured in different ways. S.-Y. Kim and Chin (2014) analyze couples with preschool children using Time Use Survey (TUS) data for women aged between 25 and 44. They find relative income (measured as women’s income as a proportion of couples’ income) is related to less housework time on weekends. S.-J. Kim and Kim (2007) analyze the 2004 TUS for couples in dual-earner families; they say the relative income (measured as men’s share of couple’s income) has no relevance to the differences in time spent by men on housework, and they find gender display among the married working women. An (2017a) addresses the issue for couples in dual earner families considering education, employment status, occupation, working hours, absolute and relative income, and gender ideology. She measures relative income following Sørensen and McLanahan (1987) and finds no relevance of the measure on men’s and women’s housework. Y.-M. Kim’s (2013) comparative study on Korea, Japan and Taiwan claims gender display is strong in Korea among couples aged 25 and 47.

Previous research has identified several issues. First, in research on Korea, there is less attention to how the responsibilities of caring for children within the household are allocated. However, this is important for a couple of reasons. Childcare differs from housework in that it is much more enjoyable (García-Mainar et al., 2011), and easier to hire someone for cooking and cleaning than for childcare (Ribar, 1995). Extending the point, there is a lack of attention in literature to the need to deconstruct childcare activities into physical care and learning-related care. Childcare is an important component of social investment (García-Mainar et al., 2011), but we suggest learning-related activities, such as reading books, have a stronger component of social investment than physical care, such as feeding, as the former are more directly related to cognitive development. Physical care can be viewed as feminized labor, like housework. Second, only a few studies have included time availability, income, and gender ideology in regression analysis. Consequently, the extent to which bargaining power is related to childcare division in the household when time constraints, gender ideology, and household characteristics are controlled is unclear.

Finally, it is important to understand the micro-level division of childcare in relation to macro-level social policy or the welfare state/regime. Sociologists have demonstrated that division of housework cannot be fully understood without considering the welfare regime at a macro level (Fuwa, 2004; Geist, 2005). Geist (2005) argues that married women in social democratic welfare regimes can exert bargaining power over the division of housework, as the welfare state supports women’s employment and gender equality. She further says married women in liberal welfare states exert economic bargaining power because these regimes highlight individualism, the ideology underlying the liberal tradition (O’Connor, Orloff, & Shaver, 1999). García-Mainar et al. (2011) show that the gender division of childcare in social democratic welfare states where mothers’ employment is supported by the welfare state through work and family policies is less unequal than elsewhere, particularly countries where care is presumably paid informally, i.e., southern Europe.

The Korean welfare state is neither a social democratic nor a liberal regime. Neither is it similar to southern European states where care is often a paid form of work in the informal sector. The Korean welfare state is characterized by developmentalism (Kwon, 2005), and its policy is implicit about gender relations, taking the strong gender division of labor for granted. However, since the 2000s, the government has actively intervened in family and care, indicating a significant defamilialization of the caring function (An & Peng, 2016). Social expenditure on early childhood care and education (ECEC) increased from 0% of GDP in 1990 to 0.8% in 2013 (OECD, 2018a). In 2014, 35.7% of children under three years of age received formal childcare (OECD, 2018b). An and Peng (2016) claim the public-finance nexus across the public and private sectors in childcare service has important implications for the effect of childcare policy on gender relations. An (2017b) posits that if childcare providers are heavily marketed and if generous subsidies to families are available from the government to encourage the use of the market service, the government replaces men as breadwinners without viewing women as paid workers. In other words, it supplements the caring function of family without necessarily changing gender relations in the family. In Korea, where the state’s financial commitment has increased, the majority of service providers have been market-based. This suggests that although Korea’s childcare provision might have encouraged more women into the labor market through paid forms of care, at an ideational level, it does not view Korean women’s socioeconomic role as that of paid workers.

We should also consider the effect of family policy on the gender division of labor in context-specific ways. The welfare state comprises more than politics and policy instruments. It is embedded in a socioeconomic and cultural context (Pfau-Effinger, 2005). The effect of a policy cannot be assumed to be similar across societies. Thus, it is necessary remember the context of childcare provisions. We suggest that a woman’s labor market participation behavior and her gender role ideology are important and related concerns; a woman’s decision on whether to work for pay is significantly related to her belief on its influence on her children (Orloff, 2009). Korean women still leave the labor market to raise their children, showing an M-shaped pattern of age-specific labor market participation. This pattern is related to attitudes to or preferences for childrearing. In a national survey on the family in 2015, 32.7% of respondents strongly agreed and 48.3% agreed that fathers and mothers have equal childcare responsibilities (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2015a). In a national survey on childcare in 2015, 64.9% of mothers with preschool children chose not to work for pay in order to concentrate on childrearing (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2015b).

The social investment approach to welfare state has appeared in OECD countries since the late 1990s. Social investment emphasizes the development of human capital (Esping-Andersen, Gallie, Hemerijck, & Myles, 2002). Peng (2014: 143) points out that childcare expansion in Korea is shaped by the idea of social investment. Of course, social investment is not new in East Asian welfare regimes; social policies in these countries were designed to facilitate the development of human capital to support the industrial economic base. This, in turn, strengthened a structural context that emphasized the human capital development of children, making the social reproduction of the family and women’s role as caregivers imperative. An (2018) finds the number of children younger than 10 decreases stay-at-home mothers’ share of housework; she does not find that effect for married working mothers, but it appears in married women between the ages of 20 and 39 who are likely to have young children and, also in women over 40. The findings indicate that being a stay-at-home-mother reduces a woman’s share of housework. Despite the substantial growth of formal childcare, the role of grandparents in childcare has remained important in Korea: Song (2017) reports that 20-40% of households with preschool children have grandparents involved in childcare. In short, childrearing in Korea might be a source of empowerment for all married women.

This article asks three questions.

We asked how childcare is divided between married men and women in Korea and the effect of relative income. We conducted descriptive statistics and regression analyses. Table 2 shows the results for the first question. Men’s share of childcare was on average 21.9% and the corresponding figure for women was 77.6% for childcare. Men’s share of learning-related childcare was higher (24.2%) while the share of physical care related activities was 12.5%. Women’s average share of physical childcare was 87.3% while learning-related childcare assumed 75.9%.

Table 3, Table 4 and Table 5 show the regression outputs for the second question. It shows that a man’s share of childcare is related to his economic dependency (B = -4.839), but there is no gender display. Men with more education performed less housework (B = -2.264). A traditional attitude on gender roles indicates a lower degree of a share in childcare division (B = 2.233). Korean married men’s share of childcare significantly increased during weekends (B = 3.051), and with a larger number of the young children (B = 1.57). Married men’s good health increases his share of childcare (B = 2.613).

Women’s share of childcare increases with economic dependency (B = -5.345), and there is no gender display (economic dependency squared B = -5.252). A woman’s share of childcare is also associated with her spouse’s gender ideology and her and her spouse’s time availablility. A husband’s good health decreases a wife’s share of childcare (B = -2.679). Interestingly, a larger number of young children means reduced share of childcare (B = -1.552), which perhaps reflects the fact that those with younger children tend to use multi-childcare arrangements. Women share less of the childcare during weekends (B = -2.453). Both men and women’s share of childcare in Korea are related to resources, time availability and gender ideology. However, economic dependency matters more than time availability and gender ideology.

Table 4 shows regression results on share of learning-related childcare among men and women. For married men and women, share of childcare depends on whether it is weekends or weekdays and number of children younger than 10. Men take on a larger part of childcare on the weekend when they have more children. In contrast, women share less of the learning-related childcare on weekends. Husbands’ share of the childcare increased their wives were more educated (B = 2.403) if the husbands have a more progressive gender ideology (B = 2.188). While a husband’s working hours reduce his share of the learning-related childcare, that share increases if his wife’s working hours increase. It is important to note that husbands’ relative income has a weak association with their share of the learning-related childcare.

Women’s share of learning-related childcare decreases if they have more years of education; unlike with husbands, the spouse’s education has no relevance. Progressive ideas on gender roles decrease mothers’ share of childcare as do husbands’ progressive ideas Like their male counterparts, women’s working hours decrease the share of childcare and husbands’ longer working hour increase it. It is important to note that unlike men’s, women’s economic independence means less of the learning-related childcare and they do not do the gender display.

Table 5 shows regression results on share of physical childcare. Similar to learning-related childcare in table 4, the number of children under 10 means a larger share of the childcare for husbands. There is no difference between weekdays and weekends. Husbands’ share of the physical childcare increases when they have progressive ideas on gender roles and when they are more educated. Interestingly, unlike table 4’s findings on learning-related childcare, economic independence has a significant association with the share of the physical childcare, indicating that economic independence means a smaller share of childcare.

For married women, share of physical childcare is subject to number of children younger than1 0 and more meant a smaller share of the childcare. Women’s but not men’s physical childcare is related to the spouse’s education (B = -2.715) and gender ideology (B = -1.484). It is also different from the results in table 4 that wives’ share of leaning-related childcare is not related to husbands’ education. As we found in table 4 for learning-related childcare, economic independence means a smaller share of childcare for women. In addition, there is no gender display phenomenon.

We examined the way the Korean welfare state’s social investment approach is related to the gender division of childcare. To this end, we analyzed the effect of relative income and we divided childcare into learning-related and physical childcare. Results using data from the 2014 Korean Time Use Survey showed that women’s share of childcare was three times larger than men’s. Childcare division was less gendered than housework division: women did four times as much housework as men (An, 2018). Relative income was the most important factor for share of childcare for both men and women. For married men, it was weakly related to learning-related childcare but strongly related to physical care. It was a significant factor in married women’s share of childcare.

Unlike previous research, we did not find gender display (S.-J. Kim & Kim, 2007; Y.-M. Kim, 2013). Again contrary to previous findings (García-Mainar et al., 2011; Massssen van den Brink & Groot, 1997), we found relative income was the most important factor in the gendered division of childcare in Korea. We therefore claim that the social investment approach may have created an institutional context in which married women can exert economic power over the division of childcare. Equally important, however, this effect might be context- or society-specific. In Korea, the social investment approach operates in a context where the family’s welfare provision and function of social production is much more important than in other welfare states; human capital development is a way of life for individuals and families alike; women’s age-specific labor market participation still shows the M-shaped pattern; perspectives on mothers’ employment and children’s is significantly traditional. Thus, the effect of the social investment approach on gender relations needs to be analyzed to its broader socioeconomic, cultural, labor market, and welfare regime context.

We suggest that women’s empowerment at the household level in a familialistic developmental welfare state can be different from their empowerment in a welfare state focusing on individual social rights or where individualization is a strong ideological value. However, it is important to note that the division of paid and unpaid work is much more unequal in Korea than elsewhere. Therefore, we suggest how Korean government brings married women, particularly mothers, into the labor market and makes men do more caring is an issue.