• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.22-31
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• 2011

Objectives: We examined gender differential changes in employment-related health inequalities according to occupational position (professional/nonprofessional) in South Korea during the last decade. Methods: Data were taken from four rounds of Social Statistical Surveys of South Korea (1995, 1999, 2003, and 2006) from the Korean National Statistics Office. The total study population was 55435 male and 33913 female employees aged 25-64. Employment arrangements were divided into permanent, fixed-term, and daily employment. Results: After stratification according to occupational position (professional/nonprofessional) and gender, different patterns in employment - related health inequalities were observed. In the professional group, the gaps in absolute and relative employment inequalities for poor self-rated health were more likely to widen following Korea's 1997 economic downturn. In the nonprofessional group, during the study period, graded patterns of employment-related health inequalities were continuously observed in both genders. Absolute health inequalities by employment status, however, decreased among men but increased among women. In addition, a remarkable increase in relative health inequalities was found among female temporary and daily employees (p = 0.009, < 0.001, respectively), but only among male daily employees (p = 0.001). Relative employment-related health inequalities had clearly widened for female daily workers between 2003 and 2006 (p = 0.047). The 1997 Korean economic downturn, in particular, seemingly stimulated a widening gap in employment health inequalities. Conclusions: Our study revealed that whereas absolute health inequalities in relation to employment status increased in the professional group, relative employment-related health inequalities increased in the nonprofessional group, especially among women. In view of the high concentration of female nonstandard employees, further monitoring of inequality should consider gender specific patterns according to employee's occupational and employment status.

• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.1-45
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• 2017

This study aims at explaining organizational mechanisms of inequality that has been rising rapidly alongside the proliferation of irregular employment in the post-crisis Korean labor market. It argues that inequality is not sufficiently explained by individual gap in human capital or widespread marketization as such. Social categories into which each individual worker falls seems more important as a source of labor market inequality. Employment types that are composed of regular and irregular employment do not simply indicate the different economic meanings of employment contracts but have rather been institutionalized as a social category of status in the context of inequality over the past two decades. They are also often matched with other social categories such as gender that have created and reproduced greater labor market inequality. We pay attention to the organizational practice of dominant incumbents who make claims for advantages of return based on their exclusive accessibility to limited organizational resources and explain how that particular practice plays a role to increase relational inequality between those insiders who achieve advantageous returns and outsiders mostly irregular workers who are excluded from those resources because of the social categories that they belong to. In this study, we identify seniority based pay as the key organizational practice that justifies categorical differences within the workplace and examine how that particular practice contributes to organizational level segmentation and income ineqaulity.