There’s No Superwoman – Working Mothers’ Dilemma

“It’s true that we avoid hiring women in their 20s or early 30s who are more likely to have a baby. What if they quit jobs out of sudden due to pregnancy?” Kim Hye-jeong (39), CEO of wedding consultancy Duo, confessed. Although Kim herself is a female manager, the hard reality is that she has to make decisions considering work efficiency.

Even after young women manage to get jobs, they are to face yet another wall once they get married. People often say, “She dose not work as hard as before she got married,” or “After giving birth, now she considers her job as a part-time work.” Against this backdrop, it is viewed exceptional for a married woman to have successful career.

A large enterprise ‘L’ recently brought in a female executive manager outside the company, who turned out to be a divorcee. “I was surprised to hear male colleagues say “I thought so,” said Gang, a 29-year-old single woman.

It’s not easy to make full commitment to work once women get pregnant. They realize that dealing with both work and childcare is not easy at all. Having a baby, therefore, often means extra burden to coworkers while it is a blessing to family members. And women find it hard to cope with the double-edged problem.

Kim Gi-ahn, 32-year-old stock analyst at Samsung Securities, had to finish her report working late until 2 a.m. even a day before she gave birth. “I didn’t want my pregnancy to be seen as a drag. I wanted to set a precedent for those young women wishing to work as equity specialists.”

In contrast, Kim, a 31-year-old female manager at Samsung Electronics, told her colleagues about her pregnancy and asked for some understanding. “We have certain things to concentrate on at certain times of our lives,” she said. “Since I had worked very hard for 6 years, I thought it was time to become a good mother for my baby.”

Often, things get worse after they give birth. Due to poor childcare system, most working couples have to put their babies under grandparents’ care during weekdays. Even on weekend, they are still too busy to spend good time with babies.

Ms. Ahn, a 33-year-old manger at a construction company, has had to ask her mother living in Daejeon to raise her child for the last two years, and now she considers having her own business. “I was afraid if colleagues thought that I am unprofessional, so I didn’t tell them what I was going through. In hindsight, however, it was rather counterproductive,” said Ahn.

Now, young working mothers start to believe that it is better to ask for some considerations rather than trying to be a superwoman in vain. Since giving birth and raising children is more than a private matter, women do not need to overstrain themselves or feel guilty about it.

“Looking back, it was only a short period time that I had to put much focus on taking care of my children,” said Jun Young-hee, a 48-year-old senior manager working for Kookmin Bank. “It’s the government and society’s role to help working mothers by providing an institutional system.”

Na-Yeon Lee larosa@donga.com