외국인 가사노동자 도입 정책에 대한비판적 담론 분석:인종화된 젠더 질서의 재생산

초록

This study examines the policy discourse surrounding the introduction of ‘foreign domestic workers’ as a proposed solution to the work-life balance and low fertility issues in South Korea. We analyze the policy development process in three phases and the main discourses produced at each phases from a perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis. In the proposal phase, Oh Se-hoon, mayor of Seoul City, presented ‘foreign childcare helpers’ as a ‘child-rearing focused policy’, effectively marketizing communal childcare within individual families. In the second phase, the exclusion of foreign domestic workers from minimum wage protection was actively pursued, and exclusionary politics that constructed foreign workers as ‘the other’ were evident in both sides of the debate. Throughout this process, the gendered division of labor, which frames care work as women’s work, remained firmly intact and was further reinforced. In the impasse-reconstruction phase, President Yoon Suk-yeol, president of South Korea, attempted to revive policy momentum by expanding foreign labor categories to include students and spouses of foreign workers. In conclusion, this study reveals that in framing low fertility as a ‘national crisis’, the introduction of foreign domestic workers and their low wages were justified. Women were repositioned as primary agents in reproduction and caregiving work. This suggests that marketized care and domestic labor, without addressing the structural issue of the gendered division of labor, may exacerbate intersecting forms of discrimination. The transfer of caregiving burdens to the other women is problematic not only in terms of reproducing the gender order but also in that it perpetuates the underlying causes of the ‘crisis’ in Korea, failing to provide a fundamental solution.

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