Women being expected to stop their own careers and stay home as a housewife used to be quite normal and even expected in South Korea, but this has been changing

Women being expected to stop their own careers and stay home as a housewife used to be quite normal and even expected in South Korea, but this has been changing quite quickly. Nowadays, many women return to work after giving birth - even quite quickly in many cases, and not by choice. Because the couples can't afford the kids otherwise. Anecdotally: Most of my wife's circle of friends are in their early 30s to mid-30s with first children (and we're on the way to fitting this description as well) and back to work, while their mothers stopped working once they had children. This is to say, the previous system was bad, but the new reality is in some sense worse: No, women bearing the brunt of child-bearing alone is not great, but now both parents work very hard in family-hostile work conditions to even make ends meet. Both parents working full-time is very difficult if neither employer is flexible enough not to handle "I have to pick my kid up today" or "my kid is sick".