Labour market dualization, permanent insecurity and fertility: the case of ultra-low fertility in South Korea

Timo Fleckenstein, Soohyun Christine Lee and Sam Mohun Himmelweit

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between labour market dualization, insecurity and low fertility, through a case study of South Korea, an extreme case of ultra-low fertility where the total fertility rate fell to 0.84 in 2020. It is argued that the long-term nature of the insecurity associated with dualization, as well as its impact on people’s perceptions of present and future insecurity, mark dualization out as a particular phenomenon whose impact on fertility current demographic approaches struggle to fully understand. Rather than restricting the focus to the education-employment transition, we show how permanent insecurity in highly dualized labour markets depresses fertility.

Keywords: fertility; labour markets; family; inequality; gender inequality; social policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2023-04-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Economy and Society, 3, April, 2023, 52(2), pp. 298 - 324. ISSN: 1469-5766

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/117935/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:117935

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().