The Influencing Factors on the Quality of Job Role of Married, Working Women in Korea

Park, Eun Ok; June, Kyung Ja

Abstract

The labor participation rate of women are increasing, especially for married and 30 and over aged women in Korea. The employment of married women occurs dual-role problems. But recent empirical evidences suggest that employment yields a net gain of benefits over costs with respect to both physical and mental health for women as well as men. Previous researches suggested that the quality of the role or role satisfaction, not the occupancy of the role, is one of the predictors of psychological health. The purpose of this study is to investigate influencing factors on quality of job role for Korean women with children and husband. Data were collected from 323 mothers of students at 3 kindergartens, 2 elementary schools, 3 middle schools, 4 high schools in metropolitan area, during 1998.8 - 1998.12. they were dual-earner couples, and were employed over one year. Response rate is 62.3%. Quality of role was measured using Role Quality Scale developed by Park, June & Kim(1999). This instrument is based on Role Rewards and Concerns Scale of Barnett et al.(1993) for quality of job role. Quality of job role is made of 27 items and the subfactors are interpersonal relationship, job stress, pride, payment, and autonomy. Scales have good internal consistency(Cronbach ??= 0.86). The findings of this study show that personal income, occupation, husband's attitude for wife's employment, and the perceived equity for labor division between couples are significant variables for quality of job role. But age, education, career years, working hours per week are not significant. 24.83% of the variance in quality of job role were accounted for by these variables.