• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.567-584
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• 2014

This paper attempts to analyze labor politics under the Kim Young-Sam regime. The labor politics transformed from conflictual pluralism to social partnership. The transition was triggered by the 'IMF economic crisis,' and the transitional direction was determined by the character of political regime and the pattern of social coalitions. These findings imply that the transitional direction of labor politics is not determined by an economic crisis or international pressure, but by the relational dynamics of social coalitions forcing social actors to new perception and strategic choice.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.159-184
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• 2012

This study purports to analyze how individuals' labor market integration affect their transition to marriage. In doing so, I construct variables for job stability and continuity to represent labor market integration using labor force status and years of participation at the time of marriage and during the three years up to the point of marriage. In particular, I focus on differential effects of these labor market integration on the transition to marriage by cohorts: one for those who are likely to enter the labor market after the 1997 financial crisis and the other for those who are before the 1997 financial crisis. I used the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study and analyzed individuals aged above 18 in 2008. The main results are as follows. being currently employed and regular employment increases hazards of the first marriage for men but decreases them for women. long-term no-jobs decreases hazards of marriage for both women and men. long-term regular employment increases hazards of marriage for women but not for men at the statistically significant level. These effects vary by cohorts implying that recent economic and labor market instability deteriorated economic conditions for the youth making transitions to marriage.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.45-112
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• 2002

Enhancing labor market flexibility is currently posted as one of the major economic policy objectives in Korea. However, the labor market effects of specific policies to achieve it have not been sufficiently investigated. This paper takes up the issue of employment protection deregulation and surveys and empirically analyzes its policy effects. Academic researches generally confirm that deregulation tends to promote labor turnover and employment of the disadvantaged groups such as the youth and female by raising the overall efficiency of the economy, but its effects on unemployment is not clear. In the Korean labor market, both job creation and destruction, and labor mobility have increased after the economic crisis of 1998, but they can not be seen as deregulation effects as the changes are confined to the temporary and daily employment whose labor markets are least regulated whereas the regular employment market remains virtally unchanged. Such results suggest that labor market deregulation need to be pursued consistently as a policy goal since the labor demand condition shift and the need for expanding regular employment necessitates it, for which detailed policy agenda for removing market inefficiencies should be carefully arranged.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.13
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• pp.141-162
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• 2003

This article discusses the issues of the estimated size and characteristics of irregular employment work force in Korea after IMF economic crisis in 1997. The issues of the estimated size of irregular employment work force originated from different concepts and its operationalizations among the labor economists, despite their utilization of the same labor force data, 'Economically Active Population Survey(EAPA)' collected from Korea National Statistical Office(KNSO). And the issues contribute toward the understandings of the irregular employment and the limits of the EAPA, despite its various usefulness. This article also describes the summary characteristics of irregular employment work force from both sides of labor supply and its demand. The major characteristics of irregular employment work force on the labor supply side appears in the concentration of social minorities, i.e. woman, the aged, lower educated and skilled populations. On the labor demand of irregular employment work force, the majority of it concentrated on the establishments under 10 employees, and probably the important incentives for irregular employment work force of the firms is labor cost efficiency. Finally, this article propose an alternative against the discrimination between the regular and irregular work force.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.35-66
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• 2001

This study first attempted to measure the job instability of Korean labor market by exploiting the data sets of 1998 and 1999 Korean Labor Panels. In order to compare the degrees of job instability of Korea with the one of U.S., we followed the same empirical methods used by Jaeger and Stevens(1999), Neumark et al.(1999), Bemhardt et al.(1999) recently published in the Journal of Labor Economics (vol. 17). Our empirical results suggest that the job retention rate of the Korean labor market during the IMF economic crisis was decreased to the level that the U.S. labor market has never experienced during the past two decades. One noticeable point regarding our estimated four year retention rate is that it takes a form of plateau peaked around 9 and 15 tenure year, which is in sharp contrast with the four year retention rate of u.S. showing a monotonically decreasing tendency over tenure periods. The comparison of 2-year retention rates before and after the economic crisis suggests that job stabilities has been conspicuously aggravated especially for cohorts of long tenure, irregular job, old age, service and sales jobs.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.73-87
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to confirm the productivity of housework empirically by analyzing the newspaper articles during the financial aid from the IMF. During this period, Korean Households expenses. And Korea government also wanted to share the burden of overcoming the currency crisis with households. Theoretically, Home economists has approved the productivity of housework as it increases the worth of wage by reducing cost of labor reproduction. So this article try to verify the productivity of housework by analyzing if there was public demand of housework as a means of reducing expenses during the IMF regime, based on newspaper articles. The major findings that are derived from the study are as follows : First, during the IMF regime, Households and housewives were described as an agent of overcoming economic crisis in newspaper articles. Second, households were required to substitute money expenses for housework to cut expenses. These results show that housework has worth as a productive labor and contribute to society and households as it increases the worth of wage and deceases the cost of living.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.95-124
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• 2009

In this article, I were trying to analyze the listed manufacturing companies' trend of productivity and the corporate education & training effect after the financial crisis. According to the analysis, the listed manufacturing companies have decreased their productivity since financial crisis, and from such declining trend. jobless growth and a growth without physical and human capital investment has been observed. Furthermore, there is no efficient labor force coordination within the manufacturing industry; In order to analyze the effect of education & training investment on productivity more deeply, I have practiced the dynamic panel data analysis from constructing the micro panel data which consists of company level information 1997~2008. According to the consequences, dynamic panel data analysis solved the problem of the overestimating education & training effect fairly well.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.265-273
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• 2010

Objectives: Due to the economic crisis and globalization, many workers have been suffering from severe occupational stress due to job insecurity and struggles related to downsizing and restructuring. This study aims to assess the stress levels among workers involved in fierce labor disputes and massive layoffs and to evaluate their specific needs and satisfaction with counseling services set up to help workers cope with severely stressful situations? Methods: The authors provided crisis intervention to workers in traumatic situations to compare the differential level of stress responses and needs among the workers remaining employed in a large auto factory, those laid off by it, and those laid off by other companies in the same region (Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province). We measured stress levels using the worker's stress response inventory (WSRI) and heart rate variability (HRV), and assessed workers' satisfaction with the counseling services. Results: 502 workers participated in the program. Fifty-seven percent of them consulted with occupational problems. The mean WSRI score of the workers remaining employed in the automobile factory was higher than that of the unemployed (employed: $39.8{\pm}19.9$ unemployed: $29.3{\pm}18.8$). Ninety-five percent of workers responded that they were satisfied or very satisfied with the counseling services. Conclusions: This study suggests the urgent need for the establishment of a national crisis intervention program dedicated to supporting workers in severely stressful situations.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.29-66
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• 2006

This study investigates the structural change of wage determination within internal labor market that have occurred around the financial crisis in 1997 by using the personnel data(1996~2000) of a Korean large firm. We take the effect of performance-based pay system to apply on wage determination of workers using Mincerian earnings function estimation. After introducing the annual salary system in the firm, we did not find the fact that the wage effect of seniority decreases, but we found the wage effect of relative evaluation ratings increases. Then, this study identifies the importance of the reward strategy of firm in Korean internal labor market. Finally, we have concluded that although the firm acknowledged the positive effects of performance-based HRM practices, we have not obtained enough evidence on the transformation into such practices because the seniority-based HRM has been traditionally prevalent in the Korean internal labor market.

• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.47-83
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• 2017

The Swedish labor market secures flexibility in the use of labor force by means of non-regular workers such as temporary workers among others instead of regular workers' layoffs. Although the labor law reform in the late 2000s made it easier to use temporary workers and the outbreak of the economic crisis strengthened the power of user firms against labor unions, the size of temporary workers was scaled down. It is the aim of this study to analyze the change in the use of temporary workers, to examine the effect of the labor law reform and that of economic crisis in that regard, and to explain how, over the use of temporary workers, user firms' strategy to secure flexibility and labor unions' strategy to regulate flexibility interact with each other so as to establish a new equilibrium through conflicts and compromises. The labor law reform to enhance the flexibility in the use of temporary workers failed to entail amendments of collective contracts. Besides, out of the economic crisis, user firms adopted a new policy to use third party workers more, refraining from employing temporary workers. That's why the number of temporary workers has declined eventually. User firms prefer to use third party workers because they could avoid their own responsibility as an employer and they could rely on 'permanent temporary' workers without any time limit. Labor unions, however, responded with a strategy to lay more strict regulations on the use of third party workers, so that third party workers could be used only for limited cause for external numerical flexibility. As a result, the managed flexibility thesis comes to prevail to the usage of non-regular workers in general beyond the category of agency workers. Korea with severe abuse of third party workers should learn from Swedish labor unions' strategy to provide third party workers with stronger employment security and higher wages so as to prevent user firms from abusing third party workers.