Neoliberalism and Insecure Employment in Korea: Emergence of the Working Poor and Worsening Socio-Economic Polarization

Abstract

This paper examines how neoliberalism, especially its emphasis on labor flexibility, has contributed to the polarization of Korean society over the years. Neoliberalism brought an end to the custom of lifetime employment in Korea and ushered in the era of "flexible employment," whereby workers can be laid off relatively easily and new recruits hired as irregular workers. Such changes in employment patterns have led to the proliferation of various forms of nonstandard employment, which, as the paper illustrates, is the main cause of the increasing polarization between the "haves" and "have-nots" in Korean society. Polarization engendered by underemployment has led to social marginalization of the increasing number of workers in Korea, engendering a large number of the "working poor." Many of these working poor are also "house poor" and "rent poor" i.e., households experiencing financial difficulties owing to the large proportion of total income spent paying off home loans and on rent, respectively. The government's policy response to this problem has been on the whole ungenerous and indifferent.