In South Korea, women are in a vulnerable situation where their career trajectories are likely to be interrupted by family responsibilities, such as childcare. These women are often called „career-disrupted women“ or „career-interrupted women“ and much research is ongoing regarding this population. Prior research had focused on understanding these women, and therefore a majority of the studies took samples of only women. The current study, however, included men in the study to compare them to women and find out what actually is unique about these career-interrupted women. Accordingly, in the present study, a sample of both women and men were taken to examine differences between them. Another focus of this study was taking into account individuals’ work and family importance. Work and family importance are the degree to which one rates each domain to be important to them. These importances can function differently for men and women. In a society with strong gender norms, holding a strong family/work value may mean something different for men and women. Thus, in the present study, how this work-family importance interacts with gender in predicting their job search behavior was tested. In sum, the present study examined how work and family importance were associated with job search behavior and whether there were any gender differences in those associations. A sample of 284 Korean adults whose career trajectories have been interrupted was used in the present study. Job search behavior and antecedent variables including work and family importance were measured. Using regression analyses, findings suggested that there are gender differences in job search behavior where men were more active in job search behavior than women. Work and family importance also played significant roles, but in different ways for men and women, suggesting that differential societal norms may be at play.
