Class Struggle or Family Struggle?

This ethnography examines the lives of young female factory workers in the Masan Free Export Zone of South Korea.

This study considers Korean economic development from the perspective of young female factory workers. It explores their struggles to improve their positions and examines their links within the labor movement. Kim analyzes how these workers envision their place in society, and how they cope with economic and social marginalization.This study complements the burgeoning literature on South Korean economic development by considering it from the perspective of young female factory workers. In approaching development from this position, Kim explores the opportunity and exploitation that development has presented to female workers and humanizes the notion of the 'Korean economic miracle' by examining its impact on their lives. Kim looks at the conflicts and ambivalences of young women as they participate in the industrial work force and simultaneously grapple with defining their roles in respect to marriage and motherhood within conventional family structures. The book 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 analyses how female workers envision their place in society, how they cope with economic and social marginalisation in their daily lives, and how they develop strategies for a better future.