Journal of East Asian Cultures

Vol. 17 No. 2 (2025)
Articles

The gendered division of household work in South Korea in the 21st century

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  • Alexandra Urbán
Alexandra Urbán
Seoul National University
Bio
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38144/TKT.2025.2.6

Published 2025-07-01

Keywords

  • South Korea,
  • low fertility,
  • housework division,
  • dual-earner households,
  • relative resources,
  • time allocation,
  • gender roles,
  • Korean Time Use Survey
    • ...More
    Less

How to Cite

Urbán, A. (2025). The gendered division of household work in South Korea in the 21st century. Journal of East Asian Cultures, 17(2), 151–180. https://doi.org/10.38144/TKT.2025.2.6
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Abstract

South Korea has one of the lowest fertility rates worldwide. In 2023, the total fertility rate per woman stood at a mere 0.72, which is the lowest in recorded history. This low fertility rate raises significant social concerns, one of which is South Korea’s aging population. While the issue can be approached from various perspectives, this study focuses on individual-level socio-cultural causes, particularly inequalities in housework distribution, to provide a nuanced understanding of the declining trends in marriage and childbirth, as well as the associated low fertility rate in Korea. The gendered division of household labour in South Korea is among the most unequal in the world, especially in dual-earner households, which have characterised the majority of married Koreans in the 21st century. This unequal division negatively influences the intentions of many young people regarding marriage and parenthood.

The paper first outlines the historical changes in housework division in Korea, particularly through the lens of paid labour. It then examines these historical trends in the 21st century through the framework of three main international theories: relative resources, time allocation, and gender role attitudes. Drawing primarily on Korean-language, quantitative, and nationally representative studies—especially on those using data from the Korean Time Use Survey—this paper seeks to identify which individual-level variables associated with these theories contribute to the unequal division of housework and how their effects have evolved over the 21st century. Additionally, it explores the extent to which these inequalities persist over the course of one’s life and how life events influence changes in housework division for men and women.

This study makes several contributions to international research. It provides a comprehensive overview of Korean research on housework, highlights Korea-specific characteristics of gender inequality in housework in alignment with various theoretical frameworks, and assesses the consistency of these patterns across different studies. Finally, the paper summarises the individual- level variables influencing the division of housework in Korea and discusses how their impact on the housework contributions of men and women has changed over time.

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