The effects of expanded universal childcare support and working mothers in Korea

Despite a tenfold increase in Korean public spending on childcare over the past decade, the effect on reducing the burden for employed women has been a subject of intense criticism. This study uses national childcare survey data from 2004 and 2012 to examine how the difference in childcare costs of working and non-working mothers has changed and how the financial burden on working mothers is increasing. Although differences in costs for the two groups were found to have decreased slightly, many households with working mothers were found to have given up public support services and ended up spending more on private child services. The private financial burden was found to be greater for the category of highly educated women. The results suggest that public support should be designed in a way that takes the mothers' employment into account, while improvements are made in the quality of childcare services.