The Ways of Career-Making Among South Koreans

Work experiences have been precarious and faces of precariousness have been even diversified. These phenomena emerge from not only traditional indicators of precariousness such as employment status, wage, and social insurance, but also feasible working practices such as changing jobs and/or careers, holding multiple jobs, and taking a career break. How do individuals maintain their careers amid this unstable and risky period? This study proposes an action theoretical understanding to tackle this question. From this perspective, career or work performance is perceived as performing or practicing ‘calling in work’, and conceptualized as a process of making one’s ego and her world through her vocation. This point of view specifies the former question and leads to another interest, the ways of career-making: through what path and by what character of work individuals have made their career. First, this study investigates patterns of career trajectory by considering the following: material rewards (wage), field of work (occupation and industry), and work-life integration or balance (working hours). Second, it compares the patterns of career trajectory by cohorts and gender. Third, it examines related attitudes and practices including investment, union membership and efficacy, and time usage. Using the panel data from KLIPS (Korean Labor and Income Panel Study), this study conducts Group-based Trajectory Modeling to reveal the patterns of career trajectory among South Koreans.