WHEN Moon Su-jong, a web designer at a mid-sized South Korean chaebol, or conglomerate, joined a late-night company booze-up and declined alcohol, her bosses guessed that she was pregnant. (What other reason could there be for not drinking?) Far from congratulating her, they were outraged. They berated her for burdening her colleagues, who would have to shoulder her work in her absence, and asked her when she would quit.
Ms Moon complained to the human-resources manager, who agreed that she was harming the company by getting pregnant. Her boss added that the firm should hire more men. She quit five months later. She left her next employer, too, after her second baby. Her mother-in-law was no longer able to help out with the child care, so Ms Moon went freelance.
Such experiences are so common in South Korea that they are the subject of a new television drama, “Working Mum, House Daddy”. Its spunky protagonist, Mi-so, struggles to combine long, rigid work hours with child care. She loses out on a promotion to a colleague whose mother-in-law looks after her grandchild (South Koreans call this a “mum...Continue reading
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