Work and Family Balance among Self-Employed and Unpaid Family Female Workers in Korea

This study examines whether work and family balance differs by the employment status of female workers. Work-family policy benefits are not always entitled to those who are self-employed or family-owned business workers. Whereas well-established welfare states provide self-employed workers with benefits through social insurance plan under certain criteria, other countries do not provide benefits to self-employed workers. In Korea, the self-employed female workers reamin uncovered by work-family policy. While self-employed workers are believed having considerable control over their work, they also experience work-family conflict (Kirkwood & Tootell, 2008; Loscocco, 1997; Parasuraman & Cimmers, 2001). Using the 2010 Korea Family Survey which is a nationally representative data, this study compared the work-family balance of the self-employed (n=135) and the employed (n=226) after controlling individual and work characteristics of the two groups. The results showed that even after controlling for those covariates, the self-employed female workers had lower level of perceived work-family balance than the employed female workers. These results manifest that we need to develop work-family policy for the self-employed or family-employed female workers. They remain uncovered in maternity and parental benefits.