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

This paper examines how neoliberalism, especially its emphasison labor flexibility, has contributed to the polarization of Koreansociety over the years. Neoliberalism brought an end to the customof lifetime employment in Korea and ushered in the era of “flexibleemployment,” whereby workers can be laid off relatively easilyand new recruits hired as irregular workers. Such changes inemployment patterns have led to the proliferation of various formsof nonstandard employment, which, as the paper illustrates, is themain cause of the increasing polarization between the “haves” and “have-nots” in Korean society. Polarization engendered by underemploymenthas led to social marginalization of the increasingnumber of workers in Korea, engendering a large number of the“working poor.” Many of these working poor are also “housepoor” and “rent poor” - i.e., households experiencing financialdifficulties owing to the large proportion of total income spentpaying off home loans and on rent, respectively. The government’spolicy response to this problem has been on the whole ungenerousand indifferent.