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Kim: Women and Health in Korea: Women as Medical Service Beneficiaries and Providers
Review Article

The Ewha Medical Journal 2017; 40(3): 108-114.

Published online: 28 July 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12771/emj.2017.40.3.108

Women and Health in Korea: Women as Medical Service Beneficiaries and Providers

Jung Sun Kim

Department of Sociology, Ewha Womans University College of Social Sciences, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Jung Sun Kim. Department of Sociology, Ewha Womans University College of Social Sciences, 52 Ewhayeodae-gil, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03760, Korea. Tel: 82-2-3277-2260, Fax: 82-2-3277-2783, jungsun@ewha.ac.kr

Received 10 July 2017       Revised 11 July 2017       Accepted 12 July 2017

Copyright © 2017. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

In order to examine the issue of women and health in Korean society, we need to adopt a new approach to consider health and body as a subject of social theory beyond the biomedical model. Health and diseases are not objective entities defined by universal standards that are separate from the patient or physician's life experience, but rather the products of social, cultural, and political processes. From this point of view, this paper explores Korean women and health in two aspects of health and medical field, that is, women as medical service beneficiaries and providers. First, the gender paradox phenomenon—women live longer, but suffer from more illnesses—was confirmed by evaluating the physical and mental health status of women. The life expectancy of Korean women is longer, but their morbidity rate of physical and mental health and subjective health evaluation is worse than men. Second, as medical service providers, the present status of female doctors showed the horizontal and vertical segregation in the medical labor market despite of the increase of female doctors and medical students. We pointed out the problems of gender inequality in health care sector and discuss policy implications of ‘gender specific medicine’ to improve women's health and medical education.

Keywords: Women, Health occupations, Sex factors, Medical education, Health policy

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

Life expectancy by sex (1970–2015). Modified from Ministry of Health and Welfare [13].

emj-40-108-g001
Fig. 2

Degree of stress (whether stress during the last 2 weeks) by sex. Modified from Ministry of Health and Welfare [13].

emj-40-108-g002
Fig. 3

Self-assessment of health by sex. *Percentage of respondents with very good and good self assessment of health. Modified from Ministry of Health and Welfare [16].

emj-40-108-g003
Fig. 4

Licensed physicians by sex: 2004–2015. Modified from Ministry of Health and Welfare [13].

emj-40-108-g004
Table 1

Morbidity rate, days of sickness and days in bed (during the previous 2 weeks, 0 years old and over)

emj-40-108-i001

Modified from Statistics Korea [15], p. 39.

Table 2

Types of employment among medical doctors by sex, 2014

emj-40-108-i002

Modified from Korean Medical Women's Association [26].

Table 3

Distribution of specialties among medical doctors by sex, 2014

emj-40-108-i003

Modified from Korean Medical Association [27], p. 85.

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