The Gender Division of Housework in the Choson Period as Expressed in Genre Painting

조선시대 가사노동의 성별분업: 풍속화 분석을 중심으로

The purpose of this study is to investigate the gender division of housework in the Choson period. The gender division in the Choson period has been considered as discriminative because women had to remain indoors and were excluded in social works. But in fact the Confucian idea, which regulated the relation between women and men, emphasized the gender difference and not gender discrimination. Actually it can be seen in genre painting of Choson period that women and men worked complimentarily indoors. So this article intends to explore the possibilities of the new analysis of the traditional gender division of housework by reviewing the paintings. As the results indicate, men in the Choson period were involved in some housework, in contrast to the common idea that they maintained their authority by not participating housework. There is also some evidence that gender division benefited women to protect their own productive territory or to satisfy their needs. So it is suggested that gender division in the Choson period should be considered as a source of power as well as a disadvantage to women. Forth, the employed mens' reemployment decision was affected from their household income, expected income after retirement, pension ownership, and attitude toward retirement. From the findings, it can be concluded that the employed mens' age, economic status, and attitude toward retirement played a important role in the process of retirement and reemployment decision making.