Welcome to the Regular World! Exploring How Female Doctorate Holders in Education Transition from Irregular to Regular Work in South Korea
Abstract
:1. Introduction
Definition of Terms
2. Literature Review
2.1. Current Trends of Female Ph.D. Holders in Labour Market
2.2. The Difficulties That Women with Ph.D. Degrees Face When Acquiring Permanent Job Positions
2.3. Theory of Work Adjustment and the Transition Experience of Irregular Jobs
3. Research Methodology
3.1. Method
3.2. Sample
3.3. Data Collection and Analysis
4. Results
4.1. The First Step in the Transition: Solidarity and Change
“Any employee with a doctoral degree can’t get into a full-time union. Fortunately, I have known someone very well a long time ago. My friend, Alice, and I really wanted to go into the union, and finally, they thankfully accepted us for irregular employees’ issues. For example, most irregular employees were evaluated every two years. But I, as an irregular doctoral researcher, did every six months and cut it off if I did not get more than 80 points. Yes, it was one of the contract options. So, at that time, I felt that the university wanted to cast me out”.(Sophie)
“In fact, even though I was an unlimited contract researcher in a Master’s level position, I was guaranteed retirement, working to 60 age. [...] One day, my co-worker said to me, “why are you switching to the regular from unlimited contracts? It might not be going to get better than now”.(Alice)
“I renewed my contract every year, and it was not difficult to renew the contracts if there wasn’t a big problem. That was when my department was an independent one in the university. When it was merged into one of the colleges, they started to say that doctoral-level staff could only have contracts for six years maximum—they never told me something like that before. They started to mention my job insecurity and gave me job tasks that other regular employees didn’t want to do. Also, they gave me more and more work orders outside my job duty”(Jina)
4.2. Changes in the Organization: Another Wall
4.2.1. Gaps between Unfairness and Justice
“The team described me as a stone that had been rolled around. [...] Anyway, I’m here to do more of my work than before. When the job is gone, I will call it there and back it up and think there’s nothing else (that’s coming to me again). You’ll have to do something like this with the deputies who are getting a high salary. I gave it to the deputy (he said it wasn’t his job). I don’t know why I do it. So, is it my job? They didn’t talk about salary, employment conditions, etc., to me at first. I am fine with getting a lot of work, but my tasks keep changing, and more of that happens to depend on their endless orders and needs.”(Jina)
“I’m the youngest in the order of hire and age. Because (according to the organization’s logic) I am a newcomer at this workplace. I’m doing more and more of the things. In fact, they do not recognize that “I am a Doctoral degree holder,” and it is meaningless for them. It is a gap between their perspective and mine. I had the expectations and my respect as a Doctor.”(Jina)
“It’s been revised and added. I’ve been secretly putting this (prohibiting a lecture in a university.) for six months. There was no provision. That was the Deputy Head X of Team Y. And some regular employees hates it that we were pursuing a doctoral degree. The regular employees dislike the university hiring a worker holding a higher degree than them. They’re full-time regular employees, and we’re not, so they did not want us to become smarter than them. They had fully investigated all irregular employees with a doctoral degree whether they were going to lecture or not. A deputy head of the B team told me that our university would not get paid anything for my extra work, such as a lecture.”(Sophie)
“Finally, I am a regular staff member. But it did not change my job duties. I did the same thing, and I did all the special lectures my academic advisor requested. I think the only thing that has changed is job status. I think I’ve got a sense of stability. Before that, I didn’t have any special problems, but I had a lot of anxiety, and I saw that if I had a bad feeling, I could do it, even if I didn’t. Now they cannot do anything bad. I think I feel a sense of stability about such a thing.”(Sophie)
“When I used to be an irregular researcher, so they easily gave me indiscreet work orders. It was really serious, but now I can’t do it, and of course, they can’t do it. [...] So it’s funny that they told me about their work orders to help my career. So, in the end, at that time, I was an irregular employee, and my re-contract for 6 months was based on their evaluation. Now, officially no employee has any justification for forcing me to work.”(Sophie)
“One-of my colleagues told others that they should not call me Dr. Lee but just Ms. Lee because I’m nothing more than a staff. But they made me write research reports on top of other administrative work, and the professors asked me to do research assistant work and even lecture assistance. What’s better now is that I could not say anything about this before, but now I can.”(Jina)
4.2.2. Change of Personnel Evaluation System, Filtering
“I do not know. [...] So I feel that I am not a regular employee. So now, I think a lot of things are going to be regular, and it’s weird. Before the transition, I felt I was under a different roof unlike the regular employees, and now I am under the same roof as regular employees. But I am still forcing different lives with them. It’s likely to put me in the basement and keep me using the tricks. We have six transitioned female workers with doctoral degrees in the university. Our atmosphere is weird. Only three of our six people will be able to pass the promotion exam. It’s strange. In the case of previous regular employees, the salary is equally good, and they’ve had a salary increase every year. However, our case is quite different from their case. Our salary will not increase after we reach the 10th class. They are constantly making it tricky for us.”(Alice)
“If irregular jobs were a struggle for survival, now we are struggling with a different salary and promotion system. There’s a huge difference in wages. The first difference is the salary. They started at the 6th salary class, but we start with the 8th grade. They adopted a new hiring policy before our transitions. So, even though I have seven years of job experience at this university, they did not count it. I started my new position as an intern. Some of my team members have less experience, and yet they get more money and benefits.”(Sophie)
“Just before our transition, the university promoted every assistant manager to manager. The gaps between the manager and me don’t fill up. But this sense of deprivation is not a joke. They are just because of regular positions, they are getting salaries two levels above ours, and the gap continues to widen. I do not think it’s improved just because I’ve become a full-time employee.”(Alice)
“One of my concerns was the differences in the work evaluation system. Previously, just the director evaluated my work, but currently, I have to be evaluated by the administrative staff as a co-worker. I’ve been working as a researcher for a long time, but some of the staff have less experience than me in the university. Also, I had to spend a year as an apprentice. Because the university did not recognize my career in the university even though I have been here for 16 years. I didn’t get any credit for my career. To be transferred, I should quit my job and be re-hired in the same workplace and same position. It is funny, isn’t it?”(Alice)
“It’s a university, it’s an educational institution, and I’m looking forward to it. There’s an expectation that our organization would be different from other businesses. But I think it’s more of a betrayal when you know you don’t. The university was in a hurry to make this transition to a regular work position. It went in a very impolite way. They did job analysis for all employees, including full-time and contractors. I think they wanted to create a standard to justify this unfair policy. The results of the job analysis were justified that the existing workers work more, and they need a lot of money. It would be a good document to solve enough legal problems to identify two types of employee contract. I sometimes say that I want to go back to the contract position in the old days. Because everything, such as vacation time, has been reset. When I had a contract position, my vacation days were increased a day every two years. I got about 20 days, but when I became a new full-time employee, I was reduced back to 15 days. Anyway, the regular staff members are the privileged class.”(Alice)
“It’s a little frustrating. They give me work that a manager with 17 years of experience used to do, and I even get extra work besides that. It’s not a matter of how much I work, but its rather than the respect, compensation, and satisfaction corresponding to the amount of my work. Also, I used to give lectures, and after my position became regular, they said I couldn’t give lectures at our college after work. It’s not that it’s against any regulation or the law, but just because it doesn’t look good for them. In short, I got more work but with less salary, and I cannot even be respected enough to be called “Dr.” I thought my position was changed to permanent and that I would become a legitimate staff member here, but I feel there is now another glass ceiling. A bullet-proof one.”.(Jina)
4.3. Personal Change Since the Transition: Between Rest and Stability
“I’m doing the right job for my field, and I’m not alone in my work. I’ve been with my colleagues for a long time. All issues have been cleaned up, and employment anxiety is gone as well. I think it’s good.”(Sophie)
“If suddenly, there’s a lot of extra work our team does not expect, or there’s a staff shift, vacancies, or unexpected situations, finally I get the extra work, and it’s coming to me. One of my team’s deputy heads said, “You are a convertible worker. It means flexibility. But the good news is that I didn’t say anything about it in the past. Now they look over my shoulder. Anyway, besides my job satisfaction or status, the value and meaning of my work are downgraded compared to before.”(Jina)
“Sometimes I think I should learn in order to readjust to this organization and members, and in that respect, I failed to achieve organizational socialization. It was so hard for me at first. It’s really hard now. The fact that they call me “Ms. Lee,” not “Dr. Lee,” and that I have to call my friends and other professors Ph.D.’s. These things make me keep wondering if I made the right choice.”(Jina)
“In fact, I usually felt like my hands were tied, and I could not speak out because there was always the threat that my contract wouldn’t be renewed. After my job status transition to a regular position, it has increased a lot of psychological stability. Actually, I think that’s not because I can’t quit my job in that my work itself is a problem, but because of my relationship with people, and I feel a little calm about it.”(Sophie)
“I was on loan (during my irregular term), and that income was maintained during my career. Even though the transition is now a much smaller salary than it was before, the bank is more concerned with guaranteed assets than the changed assets, even though my monthly earning has been much smaller than it used to be. Bank interest, which was 6% off, fell by 4% and was extended on a yearly basis. The Bank said to me that employment stability was the most important reason to decide a loan rate. I wasn’t happy with it.”(Jina)
“My Mom says it’s hard to survive in this society, so I shouldn’t complain, and my Dad is disappointed (that I gave up becoming a professor.) For me, considering the company welfare of the job, such as the health care insurance, pension, it’s fine. I always think I should quit, but every month when the payday comes, I get back to work. Honestly, in from compensation aspect, it’s not bad (compared to the temporary position.) The salary stayed the same. (but it is ridiculously low compared to the regular employees who have been there before.) So, it’s better than professors in small colleges, actually way better since there are not even many professor positions... I think it’s all good right now, but that’s just something I tell myself to feel better.”(Jina)
5. Conclusions
6. Recommendations
7. Limitations of the Suggestions for Future Research
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
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Pseudo Name 1 | Age (years) | Work (years) | Work/Role before and after the Transition |
---|---|---|---|
Alice | 45 | 16 | Identical |
Jina | 43 | 10 | Similar |
Sophie | 41 | 7 | Identical |
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Kim, H.; Lee, S. Welcome to the Regular World! Exploring How Female Doctorate Holders in Education Transition from Irregular to Regular Work in South Korea. Sustainability 2021, 13, 5347. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13105347
Kim H, Lee S. Welcome to the Regular World! Exploring How Female Doctorate Holders in Education Transition from Irregular to Regular Work in South Korea. Sustainability. 2021; 13(10):5347. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13105347
Chicago/Turabian StyleKim, Hyosun, and Sooyong Lee. 2021. "Welcome to the Regular World! Exploring How Female Doctorate Holders in Education Transition from Irregular to Regular Work in South Korea" Sustainability 13, no. 10: 5347. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13105347
APA StyleKim, H., & Lee, S. (2021). Welcome to the Regular World! Exploring How Female Doctorate Holders in Education Transition from Irregular to Regular Work in South Korea. Sustainability, 13(10), 5347. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13105347