Korean College Students' Time Allocation: Sociocultural Implications for Career Development and Gender Role

In Korea, individuals' lifestyles are strongly influenced and prescribed by Confucian ideology (Shim, 1995). Although gender differences in household labor are getting less pronounced as the Korean society becomes more modernized, this study revealed that participants still reflected their traditional gender role and responded to the expectations of Confucian paternalism behaviorally in their time allocation. This study surveyed 563 Korean college students. The correlation analyses and two-way analyses of variance were used to measure effects of both gender and year in school on daily activities. The findings revealed significant differences of time allocation based on gender and year in school. Gender role and career development were further discussed to explain Korean college students' allocation of time.  Research has shown that women contribute much more time to household labor than do men (Ward & Spitze, 1996). In Korea, this differentiation holds true and is prescribed by Confucian ideology (Deuchler, 1992; Huh, 1994; Kang, 2000; Shim, 1995). Although gender difference in household labor is getting less pronounced as the Korean society becomes more modernized, individuals may still hold traditional gender roles and respond to the expectations of hierarchical Confucian paternalism in how they allocate time to everyday activities. This view is not surprising: Confucianism has been strongly embedded into East Asians' lifestyles and traditionally directs gender roles (Chia et al, 1997). For example, cooking a good meal, keeping a place tidy, washing dishes, and doing laundry were viewed as a necessary part of the role played by mothers and daughters in Korea (Huh, 1994). As Korean society becomes industrialized and modernized, a great demand for producing technical human resources have been emphasized as potential educational values (Hong, 1983). Therefore, Korean men's roles as leaders of family and society have been accentuated by the national economic needs and Confucian traditional beliefs about gender roles. Consequently, Korean women's roles have been more strongly prescribed in family education. In particular, gender role education has been especially recommended for women in areas such as home economics, family studies, and child studies in Korea (Huh, 1994). Kang (2000) thoroughly discussed and provided the review of ethnographic and quantitative evidence on (1) how and why Korean men and women are educated differently in family, schools, and the society, and (2) how Confucian beliefs have been imbedded into Korean men's and women's daily lives. Byun's (1995) study well illustrated the impact of militarism on gender role among college students in Korea. She asserted that militarism conveys a great importance on the maintenance of the social hierarchy, a collective mentality, and the norm orientation, which were derived from Confucian paternalism and were necessary to protect South Korea from being invaded by other countries. Men's serving in the military is mandatory in South Korea, and the majority of male college students prefer to finish their military service prior to graduating from the university (i.e., prior to moving on to their senior year) to prepare for employment examinations administered by major businesses industries to recruit new employees (Shim, 1983). Based on the aforementioned aspects of Korean culture, senior (especially male) students were expected to show more job seeking behaviors and more political and societal concerns for Korea. In this study, the time spent in certain daily activities are expected to be correlated with year in school. Due to the difference in the nature of tasks assigned to college students, senior students may be more focused on maintaining good grades, studying for employment examinations, and preparing for job interviews. Therefore, this paper examined the following research question: Research question 1: Are there differences in the way that students spend time based on their year in school? …

Field of study: Education