Class Struggle or Family Struggle?: The Lives of Women Factory Workers in South Korea / Edition 1

by Seung-kyung Kim

Overview

This study considers South Korean economic development from the perspective of young female factory workers, who grapple with defining their roles in respect to marriage and motherhood. Kim explores the women's individual and collective struggles to improve their positions and examines their links with other political forces within the labor movement. She analyzes how female workers envision their place in society, how they cope with economic and social marginalization in their daily lives, and how they develop strategies for a better future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521570626
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/28/1997
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	236
Product dimensions:	6.26(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.79(d)

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures; Preface: field, subject, author; Acknowledgements; Language Note; 1. Women caught between global capitalism and South Korean patriarchy; 2. The process of production in the Masan Free Export Zone; 3. The myth of social mobility: its creation and reproduction among women workers; 4. Labor militancy and collective action; 5. The making of working class identity: students' theories and workers' lives; 6. Conclusion; References; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Going beyond abstract economic indicators and anecdotes, Kim...offers a rich, sensitive ethnography based on participant-observation as a factory worker in the late 1980's..." Charles Armstrong, ILWCH

"...sharp and very original observation on the uneasy and quite complex relationship between college educated activists and women workers." Journal of Asian Studies

From the Publisher