Double Poverty: Class, Employment Type, Gender and Time Poor Precarious Workers in the South Korean Service Economy

AbstractAbstractDouble poverty refers to the lack of both time and income. This study analyses precarious workers' double poverty, focusing on the case of South Korea, where the characteristics of its labour market perpetuate the risk of double poverty. This study set less than two-thirds of the median free time and less than two-thirds of the median income as poverty lines. Using Korean Labour & Income Panel Study data, this article identifies the double poor, experiencing both time and income poverty in the Korean labour market. It then examines the effects of occupational class, employment type, company size, social wage, trade union membership, and gender on double poverty. It is found that double poverty impacts women workers, low-skilled service workers, and non-regular workers. This study contributes to the discussion of precarious work by analysing the double poverty of time and income of precarious workers. Time poverty limits workers' capacity to escape income poverty as they are unable to work longer and invest in household production or human capital. Consequently, the workers' lack of time deepens their precarity.Key Words: Double povertyoccupational classprecariatservice economySouth Koreatime poverty Disclosure StatementThe authors report that there are no competing interests to declare.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Laboratory Program for Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2018-LAB-1250002).Notes1 There is now a plethora of work defining precarious work and precarious workers. Among others, see Kalleberg (2000 Kalleberg, A. 2000. "Nonstandard Employment Relations: Part-time, Temporary and Contract Work." Annual Review of Sociology 26 (1): 341–365.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2009 Kalleberg, A. 2009. "Precarious Work, Insecure Workers: Employment Relations in Transition." American Sociological Review 74 (1): 1–22.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]); ILO (2011 ILO. 2011. From Precarious Work to Decent Work: Policies and Regulations to Combat Precarious Employment. Geneva: International Labour Organisation. [Google Scholar]); Standing (2011 Standing, G. 2011. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: Bloomsbury Academic.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]); Kalleberg and Hewison (2013 Kalleberg, A., and K. Hewison. 2013. "Precarious Work and the Challenge for Asia." American Behavioral Scientist 57 (3): 271–288.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]); Kalleberg, Hewison, and Shin (2021 Kalleberg, A., K. Hewison, and K. Shin. 2021. Precarious Asia: Global Capitalism and Work in Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia. Standford: Stanford University Press. [Google Scholar]).