Author

Timo Fleckenstein, Soohyun Christine Lee, and Samuel Mohun Himmelweit

Title 

Labour Market Dualization, Permanent Insecurity and Fertility: The Case of Ultra-Low Fertility in South Korea 

Year

Forthcoming

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between labour market dualization, insecurity and low fertility, through a case study of South Korea, which presents an extreme case of an ultra-low fertility, where the total fertility rate fell to 0.84 in 2020. It is argued that the long-term nature of the insecurity associated with dualization, as well as the importance of people’s perceptions of present and future insecurity, mark dualization out as a particular phenomenon, whose impact on fertility current demographic approaches struggle to fully under-stand. Rather than restricting the focus to the education-employment transition, we show that how permanent insecurity in highly dualized labour markets depresses fertility.