Class Struggle or Family Struggle? : The Lives of Women Factory Workers in South Korea

Review
"Going beyond abstract economic indicators and anecdotes, Kim...offers a rich, sensitive ethnography based on participant-observation as a factory worker in the late 1980's..." Charles Armstrong, ILWCH

"...sharp and very original observation on the uneasy and quite complex relationship between college educated activists and women workers." Journal of Asian Studies


Book Description
This study considers South Korean economic development from the perspective of young female factory workers, who grapple with defining their roles in respect to marriage and motherhood. Kim explores the women's individual and collective struggles to improve their positions and examines their links with other political forces within the labor movement. She analyzes how female workers envision their place in society, how they cope with economic and social marginalization in their daily lives, and how they develop strategies for a better future.


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This study complements the burgeoning literature on South Korean economic development by considering it from the perspective of young female factory workers in the Masan Free Export Zone, the group whose cheap labor underwrote the initial phases of Korea's economic growth and that continues to be the most poorly paid segment of the Korean labor force. In approaching development from this position, Professor Kim explores the opportunity and exploitation that industrial development has presented to female workers and humanizes the notion of the "Korean economic miracle" by examining its impact on their lives. The author analyzes how female workers envision their place in society, how they cope with economic and social marginalization in their daily lives, and how they develop strategies for a better future. In exploring these questions, the book considers the heterogeneity of female workers and the complexities of their experiences as women and as workers.


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