• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.49-75
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• 2003

This paper empirically examines multiskill formation as a critical mechanism of human capital accumulation within the firm. We investigate various factors that foster multiskill formation of the employees at the workplace. We also investigate whether and how multiskill formation of the employees, in tum, affect the labor productivity. Our empirical results are summarized as the following. First, skills of the employees are developed along the sequential path rather than the parallel path. They evolve from the simple-skill to the single-skill, and then to the multi-skill state. Second, multi skilling is stimulated by uncertainty factors of the environment and various human resource management practices such as mutual learning among workers, workers' participation in decision making, and job rotation. Third, the increase in the ratio of multiskilled workers in the firm has a positive impact on the growth of the firm's labor productivity. Our analyses show that the labor productivity growth increases by 0.019 with the increase in multi skilling ratio by 0.1. Fourth, uncertainty and human resource management practices had an indirect impact on labor productivity growth only through multiskilling. These results strongly indicate that multiskilling is a result of human capital accumulation fostered by various human resource management practices.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.99-124
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• 2016

This study analyzed the effects of labor unions on the wages of Korean female workers using 'Korean Labor and Income Panel Study.' In the estimation we considered the self-selection bias due to the women's labor force participation decision and a plausible non-response bias from not answering the question about the company size in terms of number of employees. By fixed effect estimation we found that labor unions in Korea do not increase the wages of both the female union workers and non-union workers who work at a company in which a union is organized comparing to female workers who work at company without a union. This results indicates that female workers who work in the company with labor union tend to have unobserved characteristics that are positively correlated with both wages and the probability to enter the company with labor union. We also came to the conclusion that there is no free-rider effects of non-union workers.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-23
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• 2003

The goal of this paper is to explore and compare the situations of North Korean and Chinese labor forces in the Russian Far East (RFE). First of all, the past and present pictures of North Korean and Chinese labor forces were reviewed, and then local Russinans' views about those foreign workers were analyzed in terms of political, economic, socio-psychological and public order aspects. As a result, it turned out that both North Korean and Chinese workers were regarded as useful to the RFE from economic viewpoint, but not as beneficial to local Russians in terms of maintenance of public order. According to the political and socio-psychological views of local Russians, North Korean labor forces were much more preferable to their Chinese counterparts. This paper implies that participation of South Korea in the development of RFE via North Korea workers is significant in that local Russians are very afraid of flooding Chinese workers there.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.157-177
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate the contexts in which employed mothers with young children consider leaving the labor force. We used a mixed methods design, which integrates the findings of quantitative and qualitative analyses, to better understand the dynamics underlying employed mothers' intentions to leave the labor force. The participants of both quantitative (N = 324) and qualitative (N = 16) data were married mothers who were employed full-time and had at least one child younger than elementary-school age at the time of data collection. Both the quantitative analysis of logistic regression and the qualitative thematic analysis revealed that the child's age, the husband's income, the utilization of child care by relatives, the mother's job involvement, family-to-work role conflict, and other costs and rewards of participation in the work force were the important contexts where employed mothers considered leaving the labor force. The quantitative analysis uniquely found that being employed at a workplace with flexible work hours were associated with lower odds of considering exit from the labor market. The qualitative analysis highlighted that the decision to leave the labor force or to stay in it is a complicated issue that almost all employed mothers potentially face at some point in their careers. These findings suggest that policy support is warranted to help employed mothers with young children remain in the workforce when they wish to.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.494-502
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• 2017

This study examines how the Netherlands and Denmark lowered the increase in income inequality, at a period in time when income inequality in the world was deepening. This study investigates the level and trend of income inequality in the Netherlands and Denmark compared to those in Korea, the United States, Germany and Sweden. Using the method of the decomposition of changes in income inequality, this study identifies which factors are associated with the changes in inequality in these countries. It also explores which labor market policies mitigated inequality in these two countries. One of the major reasons for the reduction in earned income inequality in the Netherlands is the increased participation of women in economic activity through the increase in voluntary part-time working. In particular, the policies designed to promote equal treatment between full-time and non-regular workers contributed to the active participation of women in part-time work. Using active labor market policies, Denmark improved the proficiency of low skilled and low-wage workers, thereby alleviating the wage gap between high-income and low-income workers. Based on the experiences of the Netherlands and Denmark, this study discusses policy directions to mitigate income inequality in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.345-366
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• 2012

This study analyze Family gaps(the wage gap between mothers and non-mothers) across the wages distribution in Korea using 2008 Korean Labor and Income Panel Study. Analysis models include Heckman's two stage estimation to control women's labor participation selection and Quantile regression method to examine the effects of children at different points of the wage distribution. The result indicates that first, comparing non-mothers, mothers with one child suffer statistically significant hourly wage losses at 25th, 50th, and 75th distribution, however not significant effects are found at lowest(10th) and highest(90th) distribution. Second, comparing non-mothers, mothers with two more children suffer statistically significant hourly wage losses at all distribution. Family gap differs across the wage distribution and highest family gaps are found at 25th distribution. With these results, the author suggests universal family policies to support mothers' labor participation and the reconciliation of work and family.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.219-227
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• 2015

This study analyzes the right guarantee level of Job Creation Project for the Elderly by participation type based on Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing. The analysis is conducted using '2012 Job Creation Project for the Elderly Participants Survey' of Korea Labor Force Development Institute for the Aged. The major findings are as follows: First, "social contribution" type's implementation level of "active participation in society and development" is not high enough. Second, considering the average age of the participants, the level of "work and the ageing labor force" is high enough while the practical level is not high in market. Third, the level of "access to knowledge, education and training" is not enough within "market entrance" participants. Fourth, the level of "poverty reduction" and "income security" is not high. Based on the results, this study proposes that the quality of "social contribution" type's occupations and "market entrance" type's education should be improved. Also, the wages of the entire occupations provided by this project need to be raised.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.1-14
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• 2014

This study applies the job-demands resource (JD-R) model to investigate the interactive effect of job demands and job resources in predicting the development of service employee work engagement and customer-oriented attitude. This paper proposed a theoretical model that suggests that the service employee's work engagement is the consequence of the employee's perceived support from the organization and its customers (customer participation) and leads to a customer-oriented attitude. However, the effect of organizational support is somewhat hindered by job insecurity, demonstrating the inability of an organizationally provided job resource to overcome the job demand of job insecurity. As a type of job demand from customer's perspective, customer crowding is suggested as a negative moderator in the link between customer participation and work engagement. As such, this article proposes how different elements of a service employee's work environment interact to ultimately influence the service employee's customer-oriented attitude. Specifically, the current research focuses on how the negative contextual elements of job insecurity and job crowding (i.e., job demands) interact with the potentially positive elements of organizational support and customer participation (i.e., job resources), as well as with an employee's customer orientation, to ultimately develop a customer-oriented attitude. This study concludes with some propositions for potential causal relationships among key constructs that can be empirically tested in future research, as well as implications of the current study for both managers and researchers.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.107-137
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• 1996

Under-utilization of Korean women's education in the labor market has been observed and pointed out as a waste of valuable human resources. Although education provides women with positive returns when they work, it has been found that Korean women's education is not much related to the likelihood of women's labor force participation. This tendency cannot be explained by micro-economic theory, which says that educated women are more likely to participate in the labor force. Thus, in this analysis, a macro-level explanation is attempted to understand Korean women's economic behaviors in relation to education. Korea's rapid industrialization since 1960 has provided ample job opportunities mostly for less educated women. On the other hand, increasing demand for educated female labor has been moderate. Various restriction against women, especially married women, have prevailed in the Korean labor market. Restrictions against women and the marriage bar tend to be selectively applied to decent white-collar jobs, mostly affecting educated women. Furthermore, there has been no shortage of educated male labor due to its adequate supply. Since Korean women spend most of their adult lives in marriage, married women's low participation in the labor force is a critical factor for the low economic returns to women's education throughout their lifetime. Restriction against married women in the labor market also existed in the past of the United States and the Great Britain. However, along with the expansion of the service sector, married women in great numbers flowed into non-manual jobs. The post-1940 increase of married women in the labor force in those countries can be understood to be a result of a labor shortage for non-manual jobs. Also in Taiwan, which shares many common cultural and economic backgrounds with Korea, the marriage bar has been in decline since the late 1970s, along with an increasing demand for female labor in the service sector. In sum, the changes in the demand structure and the supply of educated male labor force will contribute to the lift of the marrige bar in Korea.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.139-161
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• 2002

In 1987, the Equal Employment Opportunity Law was enacted, which indicated the institutional regulation against gender-discriminatory labor practices. Until the late 1980s, women were forced to quit upon marriage. It had influenced negatively on women status in the labor market. In this paper, 1 try to examine how the institutional change affects young educated women's work behaviors. The change of the education and family effect on work will be examined. For analysis, data from 2002 Women's Work Survey is employed. The results show the followings. Among women of young generation, negative effect of education has disappeared and turned out to be positive among the never married. But, marriage and the family responsibility still influence negatively on young women's participation into the labor market. In making a decision to work, husband's attitude is more important than wife's own. But, among the single, women's own attitude toward work plays an important role. In overall, women of young generation is also influenced by the family responsibility as much as the previous generation. The negative effect of marriage and the family responsibility on women's working is stronger among the college educated women.