I am an editorial writer at The Korea Times, focusing on foreign policy, North Korea and domestic politics. My key areas of interest include North Korea, foreign interference in elections, election integrity, cyberattacks and human rights. Prior to joining the Editorial Board, I served as both Politics Desk editor and Culture Desk editor. During my career, I have reported on the Presidential Office under the Lee Myung-bak administration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Assembly.
Pandemic buzzwords highlight housewives tired of increased chores
After the pandemic, housewives work harder and longer as making meals at home three times a day has become a norm. / gettyimagesbank
By Kang Hyun-kyung
By Kang Hyun-kyung
“Dolbab dolbab” (meals after meals) have become buzzwords in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.
Social distancing and its related measures, including an increase in teleworking and delayed school semester, have added to married women's household chores. After the pandemic, housewives work harder and longer as making meals at home three times a day has become a norm.
Housewives ― and some working moms who are working from home, too ― are complaining that they are tired of preparing meals every day for their family members. Preparing meals and table setting requires them to invest a great deal of time and energy on top of the work they still have to do after their families finish their meals. They are already thinking about what meals they need to prepare for the next day while they're washing dishes.
Worries about infection have seen families eating at home more ― and restaurants have emptied as a result.
Preparing three meals a day obligates women to work a whole day without proper rest. Their busier life in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak has led to the popularity of the words “dolbab dolbab.” The words reflect the demanding household duty women face in “pandemic life.”
In a column in the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, Saturday, a journalist who is a mom of a four-year-old girl, said her life has become grueling since the coronavirus outbreak because while working from home she has to take care of her little girl fulltime. Preparing meal after meal for her daughter has tested her physical limits, she wrote. For this family, there is an irony in that the mom's pandemic life has led her to burn out through the increased workload of household chores, although her daughter was happy to have her mom at home.
In these times of “three home meals a day,” women are struggling to come up with recipes. Some internet cafes created a food forum in which their members share recipes and weekly meal plans to help one another. Some moms upload images of food they prepared with brief recipes, and some unveil their weekly menu board for their families.
Dolbab dolbab has also triggered a surge in demand for the delivery of “meal kits.” My Chef, a meal kit brand has seen an their orders triple since February from a year ago.
At the same time, remote working has helped some husbands get an understanding of household chores and their intensity. Watching his wife struggling to prepare meals, one man wrote on the dolbab dolbab forum that he now understood that preparing three different meals every day is a tough job.
The pandemic seems to have provided an opportunity to rekindle the forgotten debate about housewives' uncompensated domestic labor.
In the 2000s, some women's rights group demanded in vain that the government evaluate household chores and pay women accordingly.
In October 2018, Statistics Korea released a report about women's “uncompensated labor” at home. According to the report, the average Korean woman's unpaid housework was valued at 10.77 million won per year. But the report did not lead to any further debate about such uncompensated work.
As the April 15 National Assembly elections are nearing, political parties and candidates have unveiled their campaign pledges. They released sets of measures to improve women's rights and status to curry favor with female voters.
Most of their campaign pledges are targeting working women with children. Candidates pledged to build more childcare centers, increase childcare subsidies or parental leave. But none of them address issues that can improve the welfare of fulltime housewives.