women's earnings, and men

Chosun Ilbo reported a research report from Korean Labor Institute (KLI) that wive's economic power in comparison to their husbands is constantly increasing so that at the moment in one out of five families in which both spouses work the woman earns more than the man. The Chosun article doesn't quote the research any more than that, and presents instead examples and trends which are likely to arouse human interest, like women busy in their activities leaving their husbands alone at home to wait for a meal in vain. The example of a couple in which the hairdressing shop keeper woman earns more than her husband cannot be nothing new - that was also what I encountered during my fieldwork (and what I presented about in a conference last summer and write about in my thesis). Especially hairdressing has been a profession in which the woman likely earns more than her husband: even in a normal case a hairdressing shop provides a fairly good income, and hairdressers are not likely to get married with well-earning men. (Well, the husband of one of the hairdressers that I acquainted during my research earned only 1/4 of her husband's income at the time they got married, but when I learned to know her, the husband drove a cab she had purchased.) The Chosun article presents situations in which the low-earning husband has no more any say in the household matters; as I said, that's a human-interest point of view, while in practice the situation may be more balanced as well. The well-earning self-employed women do have their assertiveness and somewhat belittling attitude towards their husbands, but not in their (and my) presence, when the men's and women's roles are let's say better preserved. The research that inspired the article by Chosun was article ‘기혼여성의 경제적 지위’ (direct link to the article as pdf; "The economic position of married women") by Hwang Su-gyeong in the September 2005 issue of Nodong Review, published monthly by KLI. Categories at del.icio.us/hunjang: women-men ∙ businesskeepers ∙ money