Analysis of longitudinal causal relationships between gender role attitudes and labor market participation of young women in Korea

The purpose of this study was to analyze the longitudinal causal relationship between gender role attitudes and the labor market participation of young women in Korea. This study used the data of 902 young women from the 2nd to the 7th waves of the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families. The methods used were the autoregressive cross-lagged model and multivariate latent growth. Women’s participation in the labor market promoted equal gender role attitudes, and the effect had a lasting impact into the future. On the other hand, the fact that women had an equal gender role attitude did not have a significant effect on their subsequent labor market participation. In addition, the experience of pregnancy reduced women’s participation in the labor market, demonstrating women’s career interruption. Through the results of the study, the necessity of an active employment policy to promote women’s entry into the labor market and prevent career interruption was emphasized.