The Covid-19 pandemic exposed a deep vulnerability in South Korea’s labor market: women’s economic activity, particularly among mothers with young children, proved far more fragile than headline employment figures suggested.
New academic research shows that as Covid infection rates rose, mothers of children under seven sharply curtailed their participation in paid work, underscoring how quickly women’s attachment to the labor market weakens when childcare systems fail. The contraction was not marginal. In many cases, it meant full withdrawal from economic activity rather than temporary adjustment.
The study, conducted by researchers at the Korea Development Institute and the Korean Women’s Development Institute, analyzed national household survey data alongside regional Covid trends. It found that for every additional confirmed case per 1,000 residents, a mother’s likelihood of participating in the labor market fell by just over two percentage points, while her weekly working hours declined by nearly 2.5%.
Fathers, exposed to the same public-health shock, experienced little change. Men’s labor-force participation and working hours remained broadly stable throughout the pandemic, highlighting a persistent gender divide in how caregiving burdens translate into economic outcomes.
Job characteristics played a decisive role in determining whether women could remain economically active. Mothers in occupations that allowed remote work generally stayed employed, absorbing the shock by reducing hours. By contrast, those in jobs requiring physical presence saw sharp declines in both employment and participation, effectively exiting the workforce as childcare options collapsed.
In regions with higher infection rates, women were significantly more likely to leave the labor market altogether rather than shift into temporary leave or active job search. The findings suggest that for many mothers, labor-market exit—not flexibility—became the default response under pressure.
The experience illustrates how quickly progress toward dual-income households can reverse when institutional support falters. Flexible work arrangements offered only limited protection, benefiting a narrow segment of workers whose jobs allowed such adjustments.
Covid did not create the gender imbalance in South Korea’s labor market. It revealed it—showing how women’s economic participation remains highly sensitive to disruptions in caregiving support, and how easily hard-won gains can erode in the absence of structural resilience.
