ad info


Asiaweek TIMEASIA.com CNN.com
 > magazine
 home
 intelligence
 web features
 magazine archive
 technology
 newsmap
 customer service
 subscribe
 TIMEASIA.COM
 CNN.COM
  east asia
  southeast asia
  south asia
  central asia
  australasia
 BUSINESS
 SPORTS
 SHOWBIZ
 ASIA WEATHER
 ASIA TRAVEL

Other News
TIME.com
TIME Europe
FORTUNE.com
FORTUNE China
MONEY.com
Asiaweek Services
Contact Asiaweek
About Asiaweek
Media Kit
Get up to 3 months of Asiaweek free when you subscribe online!


NOVEMBER 24, 2000 VOL. 26 NO. 46 | SEARCH ASIAWEEK


Family and Career
Korean women want both — and are beginning to get them

BEING 25 IN ASIA:
JAPAN: A Brave New World
Young webheads are battling Japan Inc. and ingrained attitudes to forge a new economy
MALAYSIA: Mod and Muslim
And fretting about Islamic conservatism

SINGAPORE: Pushing Back the Boundaries
But can artists ever break free to be truly creative?


Oonly five years ago, it was rare to find a woman in a South Korean office who wasn't making tea or idly thumbing through a bridal magazine. Though they may have graduated from elite women's colleges, most female employees put marriage and family far ahead of careers. They typically quit their jobs before their weddings. In a conservative and patriarchal society, women, it was said, lived their lives in the shadow of three men — father, husband and son.

All that is changing. Go into a bank, restaurant, or department store these days and you will see pregnant women coming to work. This is true even in such large, tradition-bound conglomerates as Hyundai and Samsung. You might even find women in their early 30s with titles like manager or marketing director. What's new is the belief that the workplace is no longer a mere way station on the journey to children and a home. Korean women who joined companies in recent years are the first generation to move up the corporate ladder.

Take Michelle Han, 34. As a student at Seoul's Kyung Hee University, she never thought that she would become a senior executive. Parents discouraged their daughters from nurturing such ambitions, and employers considered young women to be temporary help at best. But Han, who is married with a daughter, now heads an international investor relations team at Korea Asset Management Corp. She thinks that women could close the gap with men in company hierarchies "maybe in 10 years."

Of course, ambitious Korean women still face many obstacles. Traditional attitudes, while softening, are still prevalent. "When I told my mother I was going on a business trip with my male boss, she told me to quit right away," says 27-year-old Kim Hana, who works for a foreign marketing firm in Seoul. And employers still balk at investing time and resources in training women. The statistics bear them out. Today, some 70% to 80% of women who enter the workforce quit early.

For women, career advancement often means personal sacrifices. Cho Moran, 32, a manager at Korean Air, recently decided to do something almost unheard of in Korea. To set a precedent for women employees, she is leaving her husband and son behind in Seoul to take a posting in Tokyo. "It may be tough for me personally, but I have to accept this transfer for the sake of my female colleagues," she says.

Korea's corporate culture can be off-putting to young women. "In many places, it is still designed by men and for men," complains Choi Hyun Soo, 28. She recently quit as an assistant manager at a trading company because she could no longer stomach the attitude of her male colleagues. "Everything in the company is male-oriented, including the habit of after-hours drinking," she says. "The men considered me an outcast because I refused to go along with them."

Even so, there is growing acceptance of women with independent minds. New laws and the efforts of labor unions are also having an effect. Samsung has set up a day-care center for married women with children. "Younger women want to have both career and family," says Cho Sung In, 27, assistant manager for global media relations at Samsung Electronics. "Some companies have begun to realize that."

The new economy will open up more opportunities for women. Many founders or executives of new information technology concerns, though still almost invariably men, are at least younger than the typical Korean executive and have more accommodating attitudes. They understand the value of women and need them to help fill rapidly expanding positions. Their main concern is that their employees, regardless of sex, have the necessary skills to do the job. In another five years, these women pioneers could become pacesetters in Korea's rapidly changing corporate landscape.

By TODD CROWELL and LAXMI NAKARMI Seoul

Back to the top

Write to Asiaweek at mail@web.asiaweek.com

This edition's table of contents | Asiaweek.com Home

AsiaNow


Quick Scroll: More stories from Asiaweek, TIME and CNN

   LATEST HEADLINES:

WASHINGTON
U.S. secretary of state says China should be 'tolerant'

MANILA
Philippine government denies Estrada's claim to presidency

ALLAHABAD
Faith, madness, magic mix at sacred Hindu festival

COLOMBO
Land mine explosion kills 11 Sri Lankan soldiers

TOKYO
Japan claims StarLink found in U.S. corn sample

BANGKOK
Thai party announces first coalition partner



TIME:

COVER: President Joseph Estrada gives in to the chanting crowds on the streets of Manila and agrees to make room for his Vice President

THAILAND: Twin teenage warriors turn themselves in to Bangkok officials

CHINA: Despite official vilification, hip Chinese dig Lamaist culture

PHOTO ESSAY: Estrada Calls Snap Election

WEB-ONLY INTERVIEW: Jimmy Lai on feeling lucky -- and why he's committed to the island state



ASIAWEEK:

COVER: The DoCoMo generation - Japan's leading mobile phone company goes global

Bandwidth Boom: Racing to wire - how underseas cable systems may yet fall short

TAIWAN: Party intrigues add to Chen Shui-bian's woes

JAPAN: Japan's ruling party crushes a rebel ì at a cost

SINGAPORE: Singaporeans need to have more babies. But success breeds selfishness


Launch CNN's Desktop Ticker and get the latest news, delivered right on your desktop!

Today on CNN
 Search
  ASIAWEEK'S LATEST
Web-only Exclusives
November 30, 2000

From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War
A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix

From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead
Bad news for the Philippines - and some others

From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies
Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights?


  25TH ANNIVERSARY
1975-2000
25 Years Celebrating Asia



YOUTH at 25
Asiaweek celebrates the new individualism of the region's Generation Now

20-Something
Comparing the modern Asian woman in 1975 and 2000 (Flash)

Being 25 In Asia
JAPAN: A Brave New World
Young webheads are battling Japan Inc. and ingrained attitudes to forge a new economy
MALAYSIA: Mod and Muslim
And fretting about Islamic conservatism
KOREA: Family and Career
Women want both — and are beginning to get them
SINGAPORE: Pushing Back the Boundaries
But can artists ever break free to be truly creative?

Voices
Freedom
Writer Yu Jie says the law and the Internet will free China

Online
The Internet is rocking the region, by Hong Kong netrepreneur Yat Siu

The World
President Kim Dae Jung on the challenge of globalization

Editorial
Politics is out. Business and technology are driving progress in the new Asia

MAGAZINE
Contents Page

Back to the top   © 2000 Asiaweek. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.