남성 육아휴직이 남성 근로자와 배우자의 경력개발 활동과 경력 만족에 미치는 영향

As more male employees are involved with housework in Korea where it was a taboo for male family members to do house work and female family members are mostly responsible for housework, those male employees have been using more paternity leave on their job. Although Korean male employees are now more comfortable with using paternity leave in their workplace, there is limited research to examine how those male employees’ career development activities and career satisfaction would be unfolded after they return to their workplace. Given that dual income families increase and male employees who use paternity leave have spouses with their job, this study investigated how male employees’ paternity leave would influence their spouses’ career development activities(training and development activities and networking) and career satisfaction. Based on social cognitive career theory, male employees’ paternity leave was expected to negatively influence their own training and development activities and networking and career satisfaction because of decreased self-efficacy and outcome expectancy. These hypotheses on the negative effects of male employee paternity leave on training and development activities and networking and career satisfaction were found to be supported such that those who used paternity leave were involved with less training and development and networking activities and were less satisfied with their own career. In contrast, based on conservation of resources theory and contagion theory, male employee paternity leave was expected to positively influence their spouses’ training and development activities and networking and career satisfaction, which were also supported. Spouses of male employees who used paternity leave were involved with more training and development and networking activities and were less satisfied with their own career. Finally, training and development and networking activities of male employees and their spouses were found to mediate the relationships between male employees’ and their spouses’ use of paternity leave and their career satisfaction. The research results suggest that male employees experience negative career-involved outcomes from using paternity leave and that there should be support and supplement from their workplace and Korean society for those male employees not to hesitate using paternity leave which is encouraged by government regulations and policies in Korea. More theoretical and practical issues were discussed for future research.