<p>  </p> <p>This dissertation examines working women’s experiences with careers and childcare in South Korea. Korea is characterized by its ultra-low fertility rate, aging population, and high proportions of working women and those opting out of work after childbirth. Despite the government’s generous childcare policies and widespread help from child(ren)’s grandmothers, Korean mothers report substantial difficulties in pursuing their careers due to childcare responsibilities. Thus, this dissertation asks the following questions: 1) How do beliefs and norms about childcare influence Korean women’s career pursuits and childcare arrangements? 2) What factors influence Korean working mothers’ career aspirations and pursuits in the context of COVID-19? 3) How does grandmothers’ care help influence Korean working mothers’ careers and childcare arrangements? </p> <p><br></p> <p>To investigate these questions, I analyze three waves of longitudinal in-depth interview data (n=102) from women in Korea. The first wave was collected in-person in 2019 ­before the COVID-19 pandemic with 37 women. The second (n=32) was conducted in 2020, and the final (n=33) wave in 2021. Due to travel restrictions related to COVID-19, the second and final waves were conducted virtually using video calls. The semi-structured interviews asked questions about women’s experiences with their careers and childcare, and examined how their experiences have changed or remained the same since the COVID-19 pandemic. This is one of the first qualitative studies to examine working mothers’ experiences with childcare pre-pandemic (2019) and during the pandemic (2020 and 2021).</p> <p><br></p> <p>Based on the findings, I develop the concept of “childcare ideologies”– defined as beliefs and norms about childcare. Korean women shared a diverse range of beliefs and norms about childcare encompassing family members like mothers, fathers, and grandparents, as well as non-family members like care facilities and the government. Because childcare is not a concern or responsibility of mothers alone, this dissertation encourages the sociological scholarship to conceptualize childcare more broadly, by including the discussions of political interests, social and cultural norms, and intergenerational familial care, among other relevant factors. </p> <p><br></p> <p>In addition, I document women’s experiences related to pursuing their careers and arranging grandmothers’ childcare help.  The findings show the influence of <em>gendered</em> childcare beliefs and norms on Korean mothers’ career aspirations and pursuits. Childcare beliefs that do not assume that mothers are primarily responsible for childcare motivated mothers to aspire to career success and pursue such aspirations. On the other hand, childcare beliefs that associate mothers with having primary childcare responsibility discouraged mothers from their career aspirations and pursuits. Furthermore, while I demonstrate Korean mothers’ heavy reliance on their children’s grandmothers for childcare help, I show that mothers preferred to receive childcare help from maternal grandmothers than from paternal grandmothers. </p> <p><br></p> <p>In analyzing these empirical findings, this dissertation contextualizes Korean mothers’ experiences related to childcare and career pursuits within the novel context of the COVID-19 pandemic. That is, I employ a gendered life course framework to investigate how women’s family lives and careers have been affected when the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic caused an economic and societal disruption, in addition to a health crisis. I conclude the dissertation with empirical implications and policy recommendation to better anticipate future health challenges and to assist working women and their families when these challenges emerge.</p>

En France, les politiques de conciliation travail-famille reposent principalement sur le développement de modes de garde institutionnels. Les grands-parents continuent pourtant d’occuper une place importante dans les arrangements quotidiens des familles. Comment expliquer leur implication dans la garde des jeunes enfants ? En alliant sociologies de la famille et de l’articulation des temps sociaux, et en croisant méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives, cette thèse s’intéresse aux bricolages des parents au quotidien pour articuler vies familiale et professionnelle, à travers l’étude du cas limite qu’est le recours à l’aide des grands-parents. Cette thèse met l’emphase sur deux logiques. 1) S’il existe une norme de bonne grand-parentalité qui règle la façon dont les grands-parents s’impliquent dans la garde de leurs petits-enfants, celle-ci émane des catégories sociales supérieures et n’est pas intériorisée de façon homogène dans tous les milieux sociaux. Les stratégies éducatives des parents et les attentes vis-à-vis des grands-parents diffèrent selon l’origine sociale. 2) Les contextes professionnels, familiaux et institutionnels jouent comme des contraintes et des opportunités qui influent sur les arrangements quotidiens des parents et les conduisent à infléchir leurs stratégies éducatives quant à l’implication des grands-parents. L’analyse de l’articulation de ces logiques permet d’identifier quatre types de garde grand-parentale : dépannage, routine, intensif et loisirs. Cette thèse montre enfin la corrélation entre développement des enfants et garde grand-parentale, invitant à penser cet objet comme un ensemble diversifié de pratiques vectrices d’inégalités sociales. / In France, work-family policies rely mainly on the development of formal childcare. Yet grandparents still have an important role in the daily arrangements of families. How can this involvement of grandparents be explained? By allying the contributions of the sociology of the family and the studies on work-family reconciliation, and based on the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, this thesis examines to what extent the efforts of parents to articulate professional time and family aspirations are often stopgap solutions made on a daily basis. The use of grandparental childcare is a case study for such analysis.This thesis focuses on two logics. First, while there is a norm of what is good grandparenting that determines the way grandparents should get involved in childcare, it originates from the upper-classes and is not homogeneously internalized in all social categories. Parents' educational strategies and expectations regarding grandparents differ according to their social background. Second, professional, family and institutional contexts act as constraints and opportunities that influence parents' daily arrangements and lead them to modify their educational strategies as to the degree and forms of grandparents' involvement. The analysis of the articulation of these logics makes it possible to identify four types of use of grandparents for the care of young children: temporary fix care, routine care, intensive care and leisure care. This thesis also shows how grandparent involvement affects child development. It invites us to consider grandparental childcare as a broad set of practices through which inequalities can be transmitted.