• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.729-736
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• 2023

Traditionally, Germany, a conservative welfare state, has pursued a male breadwinner model based on gender division of labor. For a long time, Germany tried to address low fertility through economic support centered on cash benefits, but it was not successful. In 2007, the German government began to shift the paradigm of family policy for work-life balance under the slogan of "A mix of time policy, income transfer, and infrastructure." When the issue of low birth rates emerged as a national concern in Germany, there was a growing social sentiment that not only the government but also private companies should contribute to increasing fertility by providing family-friendly personnel policies and working conditions. Private companies have been voluntarily improving family-friendly working conditions beyond legal obligations, aiming to secure personnel and prevent turnover. Germany's fertility rate is currently rising toward the European average level in 2023, which can be attributed to the government's work-life balance policies and the participation of private companies. In terms of improving work-life balance policies in Korea, it has been proposed to change the perception of the need for fathers to participate in child care, to make parental leave compulsory for men, to guarantee employment for women after childbirth, to expand child care facilities, and to revitalize family-friendly policies in companies.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.323-351
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to investigate which factors affect working women's intention of second childbirth and what paths that determine this intention exist. Especially, this study focused on the influence of 'values regarding children' on intention of second childbirth of working women, and divided 'values regarding children' into 'individualistic value regarding children'and 'group-oriented value regarding children'. Findings from this study are as follows. First, the research model of this study was appropriate to explain the intention of second childbirth in working women with a child by measurement model analysis and structural model analysis. Second, it appeared that the factor which directly determined the intention of second childbirth in working women with a child was 'values regarding children', and the impact of 'individualistic values regarding children' was stronger than that of 'group-oriented values regarding children'between the two. Third, 'Economic resource'factor and 'service'factor affected 'intention of second childbirth' indirectly through other factors. Fourth, the level of public and private service resources for reconciling work and family life is affected by the level of economic resources. Finally, it appeared that 'values regarding children' could be formed or changed by working women's environmental condition like public and private service resources to support reconciling work and family life. Based on these findings, this study proposed that it should be important to form values regarding children positively by improving environmental condition for reconciling work and family life to increase childbirth intention of working women.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.145-164
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• 2013

This study analyzed qualitative data to examine the attitude toward the conditions of and the barriers to the work- family balance among unmarried workers. The data was drawn from 5 focus groups consisting of 4 workers each. The 20 participants, aged 21 through 38, were interviewed in mini groups composed of 2 male workers and 2 female workers each. The research depicts four main themes about their work-family balance: the image of a dual-earner family, women's market labor, housework, and the ideal conditions of a dual-earner family. This research concluded that unmarried workers desperately want to be part of a dual earning family for economic survival. However, they also know that it would be very difficult to make ends meet and to live as dual-earner families because of the lack of a proper social support system. However, most of them believe that they must solve these problems on their own, and they do not expect to receive help from systematic public policies. They think that they should find solutions by rearranging the role divisions between the husband and the wife or by asking for help from their parents or other relatives. The only assistance they expect from the government are reliable child care facilities and governmental incentives to promote stimulate the family-friendly workplace.

• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.129-164
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• 2017

This article is an exploratory study on the recent growth of short-hours part-time work in Korea. The short-hours part-time work has been rapidly growing among low-educated women over sixty, particularly among bereaved or divorced women, contrary to the expectation of the government that encouraged the part-time work by means of work-family balance for working mothers or middle-aged women who experienced career interruption. The short-hours part-time jobs are concentrated in social service industry, mostly elderly care service jobs, and their working conditions are extremely poor, mostly low-wage jobs with no social insurances except for health insurance. In this study, we discuss why the short-hours part-time work has grown so fast in Korea since the mid 2000s. Using various governmental statistics, we examine the effects of the labor demand and supply situations during the time period, the legal context that is related with the exempt clause of the labor law, and the institutional context related with the government's public job creation projects for the elderly. We suggest some public policies needed to slow down the growth of the short-hours part-time jobs and to elevate their working conditions.

• Korean Journal of Family Social Work
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• no.55
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• pp.129-156
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• 2017

The study was conducted to identify factors that affect the first childbearing decisions among married working women in South Korea and thereby to gain insight into effective ways to improve relatively low fertility and unfavorable workplace conditions for women of childbearing age. This study used the merged data(1st-5th waves) from Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families (KLoWF), which were measured by the Korean Women's Development Institute. With 1,020 married business women, cross tab and binary logistic regression were conducted to determine which factors were significantly associated with the first childbearing decisions.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.664-675
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• 2016

The purpose of the study was to explore the nurses' perception of flexible working and present an operational guideline for implementation. The data were collected from a survey of 532 nurses conducted from 10 February to 24 February, 2015, using simple random sampling. SPSS 21.0 was used to analyze the data. This study found that the demanding for shorter hour shifts was highest ($M=3.89{\pm}0.87$) and 242 participants (46.2%) intended to apply the shift, followed by a fixed night shift, fixed weekend shift, and 12 hour shift. The common reasons identified were the poor environment of shift work and the challenges of child care. The increased time for personal development, relaxation activity to improve the quality of life and child care was highlighted and work-life balance was noted as a positive impact of flexible working. The negative impacts of flexible working were being likely to become temporary workers. These results can help establish uniform working conditions of nurses in the future by providing a standardized operational guideline as a precondition for reasonable compensation and working environment according to a flexible working pattern.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.10 no.11
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• pp.93-102
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• 2012

The purpose of this research is to create a preferable corporate culture under the SmartWork environment. There is growing interests in SmartWork, which can satisfy the compatible conditions of government's carbon emission restriction policy, corporate efficient expense reduction, productivity maximization, and each individual's work and a family. Due to the interests and the rapid development of IT technology, a realistic condition for SmartWork is established but the promotion without a sufficient preparation, such as legal examination and relevant systems, created much confusion and very few companies are introducing it. This paper discusses that a social agreement should be reached through adjustments among parties interested, such as government, companies, and employees, studies the WIN-WIN plan that individuals and organization can grow together, and proposes a new corporate culture under the SmartWork environment. SmartWork has more than the simple meaning of 'remote working'. SmartWork, a method of smart working, means a transition to a new paradigm that minimizes moving for work and work & human move together, and a change from a work-oriented culture to a human-oriented culture. This paper summarized the role of government and companies for the successful introduction of SmartWork, and proposed that a government level 'SmartWork Activation Executive Committee (tentative name)' with a strong promotional power would create a new culture of SmartWork and form a civilian consultative body to support SmartWork corporate culture creation & expansion in the private corporate area, in a tuning with Ministry of Public Administration & Security, Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Gender, and Communications Commission.