State, growth, and gender in east asian development: Comparative study of Japan and Korea

The broad objective of the study is to explore the relationship between the state-led growth and the women workers' status in East Asian development by a comparative study of Japan and Korea. Specifically, the study seeks the origins of the gender division of roles in the modern labor markets to provide a background of understanding to help explain the rigidity of the gendered structure and the connection to persistent gender discrimination in the labor markets of the two countries. The study analyzes the gendered structure of the state-led economic growth and the gender division of roles in the labor market through application of gender and development theories. Special attention is paid to the link between the productive sector and the reproductive sector to determine how this weakens the labor market status of women.;The contributions of this study are first, to add a gender perspective to the comparative study of Japan and Korea and the East Asian Miracle; second, to trace the origins of the gender division of roles in the modern labor market, and to determine the level of Japanese and Korean state involvement in the process during the early stages of industrialization and; third, to identify the relationship among state-led growth, capitalism, patriarchy, and gender in East Asian development with emphasis on the patriarchal capitalism theory.;The state-led growth used women as cheap and flexible labor. To do so, patriarchal ideologies were used to justify the low status of women workers in the labor market by emphasizing the gender division of roles. The study contends that the establishment of the gendered structure in the labor markets was significantly influenced by the role of the state. During the early industrialization in Japan and Korea, the state, capitalists, and men cooperated to limit women's participation in the productive sector and to protect male privilege in both the household and the labor market. Gendered ideologies became deeply embedded in the labor market, resulting in the rigidity of gendered structure. Knowing this helps us to understand why the women worker's status in Japan and Korea has lagged behind Western developed countries.