Highly educated women’s likelihood of combining childrearing with continuous employment over the life course has increased among recent U.S. cohorts. This trend is less evident in many postindustrial countries characterized by very low fertility. Among such countries, Japan and Korea have exceptionally low proportions of women who remain employed after having children, despite aggressive government policies designed to encourage this. We draw on over 160 in-depth interviews with highly educated Japanese and Korean men and women of childbearing age to uncover the central incompatibilities between married women’s employment and childrearing. Individuals’ narratives reveal how labor market structure and workplace norms contribute to a highly gendered household division of labor, leading many married women to either forsake employment or to consider having only one child.

中文翻译：

---

婴儿，工作，还是两者兼而有之？东亚受过高等教育的妇女就业和生育率

在最近的美国队列中，受过高等教育的女性在整个生命过程中将育儿与持续就业相结合的可能性有所增加。在许多生育率极低的后工业国家，这种趋势不太明显。在这些国家中，日本和韩国的女性生育孩子后继续就业的比例极低，尽管政府采取了积极的政策来鼓励这一点。我们利用对受过高等教育的日本和韩国育龄男女的 160 多份深度访谈，揭示已婚妇女就业与育儿之间的主要矛盾。个人的叙述揭示了劳动力市场结构和工作场所规范如何促成高度性别化的家庭劳动分工，