"As far as I can tell (You are all welcome to correct preconceived notions) women are held in a more subservient position. Traditional roles of staying at home to raise the children are alive and well here. Although it goes beyond that as well for single women."
How do "traditional roles", as you put it, make women subservient? Are child rearing and home making not useful and valuable occupations in and of themselves?
An interesting and naive question.
Child rearing and home making are undoubtedly useful and valuable occupations in the sense that reading or learning how to use the internet are useful and valuable occupations, requiring specific learned skills and should not to be underestimated in any sense. However, it is not an occupation in an economic sense in that there is no financial reward for being a housewife and mother.
Of course a good.husband will share his income with his wife, but as an 'occupation' it provides little job security, control over working conditions, pension plan, career progression, freedom to earn or save from remuneration etc etc. A husband as a sole source of income has the potential to become the worst kind of 'employer'. We all need to earn a living and are therefore subservient to our 'boss' to a degree', we need to do a good job, toe the line and keep him sweet or we're out on our ear. The difference is we can change jobs (by and large) and find something else if they become too hideous (by and large). For a housewife in a society where there are few other alternatives to marriage as a means of support and is entirely economically dependent on her husband, she is at his mercy.
Given the option I am sure many mothers (or fathers) would choose to stay at home and focus on raising a family if all financial considerations for now and the future were guaranteed. Most of us don't have a family trust fund to rely on.
The other option of choosing to be supported entirely by another individual is a risky busines. Social constraints and norms about marriage, divorce, parental obligation are societies way of managing that risk. As societies change (becoming more nuclear, divorce more common and a million other factors that mean we are no longer part of a family/village any security a woman had as a wife and mother becomes eroded.
The third possibility is that woman get a second string for their bow - she makes sure she is employable as possible in the economic world in case her husband withdraws his support at some point in the future.
This is what Korea is dealing with - moving from the confines and comforts of a closely woven society to a looser, less safe but less restricting society similar to those in Western countries. Women have to choose wisely about their future which for many will mean not risk being dependent on and potentially subservient to a man who may not stay around to support her all her life. As social bonds loosen women can and have to invest less in being attractive to a man as a means of support and more in developing economically sounds skills.
