Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5456-2859

Date of Award

Summer 8-9-2022

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Economics

First Advisor

Dr. Nguedia Pierre Nguimkeu

Second Advisor

Dr. James Marton

Third Advisor

Dr. Carlianne E. Patrick

Fourth Advisor

Dr. Felix K. Rioja

Abstract

This dissertation examines how family-friendly policies impact labor outcomes in South Korea. South Korea has experienced a longstanding decline in marriage and fertility rates, which, if unaddressed, could lead to an unsustainable loss of human capital. Moreover, Korea has had a low female labor force participation rate that ranged from 50% to 60% from 2008 to 2019. To address these issues, the South Korean government encouraged firms in Korea to adopt several family-friendly policies.

The first chapter on this topic, ”The Female Turnover Effects of Family-Friendly Policies in South Korea,” evaluates the effect of family-friendly policies (FFPs) on female turnover in South Korea. This paper investigates whether FFPs-certification-eligible companies significantly decrease voluntary female turnover. Using a Zero-Inflated Poisson regression, we find that FFPs-certification- eligible firms experienced a decrease in female turnover.

In the Second chapter, ”How Does Family-Friendly Certified Firms Affect Female Employment in South Korea?”, I consider a more comprehensive set of a firm’s characteristics and labor outcomes, and firm performance over a long-time period. This paper uses Korean Enterprise Data (KED) data from 2006 to 2019 to examine how firm performance and female employment have changed at companies that received certification for adopting FFPs. I employ difference-in-differences regressions to compare certified versus non-certified firms before and after introducing the certificate program. Our results suggest that receiving FFP certification increases female employment and firm performance.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.57709/30642293

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