保育서비스의 質이 就業母의 組織沒入에 미치는 影響

Abstract

Since late 1980's, the married women's economic activities have increased in Korea. Accordingly, the government has continued to establish or expand the childcare facilities, In the past, the childcare facilities were intended to take care of the children whose parents could not care about them due to work or disease. Then, the childcare facilities were perceived as social service for lower income families. Now, the childcare facilities cover the children from every walk of life, and therefore, charge the cost for their services. On the other hand, parents demand for better quality childcare services. In Korea, the first childcare service was the nursing program operated by Taehwa Christian Society Center in 1921. Far later in 1961, the so-called 'Children's Welfare Code' was enacted and since then, the philanthropic nursing services began to change into children's welfare programs. In 1982, the 'Pre-school Children's Education Promotion Code' was promulgated and thereunder, various nursing facilities were integrated into Semaul (new community) childcare centers. Nevertheless, as the demands for childcare services increased remarkably, the childcare facilities fell short still. Later in 1987, the 'Sexual Equality Code' was enacted and thereby, the workplace childcare system was launched, and two years later in 1989, the 'Children's Welfare Code' was announced and thereby, the childcare services expanded. In 1991, the 'Younger Childcare Code' was promulgated and thereby, all the childcare programs began to be administered by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, while a legal ground was laid to develop the existing nursing programs into the childcare programs. There are various criteria for assessing the childcare service levels. The general criteria are childcare fee, childcare hours, childcare environment (room, kitchen and play facilities), educational programs conducive to children's physical, social, emotional, intellectual and linguistic development, balanced nutrition, healthcare, services for working mothers, teachers' quality, number of children per teacher, and so on. With such a background for childcare service in mind, this study was aimed at analyzing the correlation between quality of childcare services and mothers' engagement in job life. To this end, a questionnaire survey was conducted. Here, engagement in job life connotes attitude towards job or psychological assimilation into Job. For the questionnaire survey, working mothers whose children were entrusted with the children's houses in three wards in the northern Seoul were sampled. The results of this survey can be summarized as follows; First, among the service qualities, the working mothers regarded the childcare facilities or environment as most important, followed by the contents of the childcare programs. They tended to regard other factors related to themselves as less important. Second, hours of childcare affected working mothers' engagement in job most, followed by satisfaction with the contents of the childcare programs and meal menus in their order. To Sum up, working mothers regard as important the childcare facilities or environment and meal menu, but the most important factor affecting their job engagement is hours of childcare (including the time taken to take their children to the facility). Such findings suggest that working mothers' criteria for childcare services are children-centered. Accordingly, the childcare policy should be designed to provide the children with efficient educational services as well as excellent environment and facilities just beyond simple accommodation of the children, and at the same time, improve the services for the mothers.