Journal of Families and Better Life (가정과삶의질연구)

Korean Home Management Association (가정과삶의질학회)
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Intentions of Employed Mothers with Young Children to Leave the Labor Force

미취학 자녀를 둔 취업모의 경제활동 중단 의향

  • Son, Seohee (Department of Family and Resource Management, Sookmyung Women's University) ;
  • Lee, Jaerim (Department of Consumer and Family Sciences, Sungkyunkwan University)
  • Received : 2014.03.15
  • Accepted : 2014.06.18
  • Published : 2014.06.30
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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the contexts in which employed mothers with young children consider leaving the labor force. We used a mixed methods design, which integrates the findings of quantitative and qualitative analyses, to better understand the dynamics underlying employed mothers' intentions to leave the labor force. The participants of both quantitative (N = 324) and qualitative (N = 16) data were married mothers who were employed full-time and had at least one child younger than elementary-school age at the time of data collection. Both the quantitative analysis of logistic regression and the qualitative thematic analysis revealed that the child's age, the husband's income, the utilization of child care by relatives, the mother's job involvement, family-to-work role conflict, and other costs and rewards of participation in the work force were the important contexts where employed mothers considered leaving the labor force. The quantitative analysis uniquely found that being employed at a workplace with flexible work hours were associated with lower odds of considering exit from the labor market. The qualitative analysis highlighted that the decision to leave the labor force or to stay in it is a complicated issue that almost all employed mothers potentially face at some point in their careers. These findings suggest that policy support is warranted to help employed mothers with young children remain in the workforce when they wish to.

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