The Strains of Economic Growth: Labor Unrest and Social Dissatisfaction in Korea (Harvard Studies in International Development). This item is unavailable.The Strains of Economic Growth: Labor Unrest and Social Dissatisfaction in Korea (Harvard Studies in International Development)

By the mid-1980s, Korea's economic and political situation was becoming volatile. Labour relations were especially contentious. This book is a collaborative research project between the Harvard Institute for International Development and the Korea Development Institute and provides an analytic history of the economic causes of the labour unrest and popular discontent of the late 1980s. Set against rapid increases in wages and employment, worker dissatisfaction is traced to patterns of income inequality and to non-pecuniary dimensions of working life, including the suppression of labour organizations. The desire for greater political freedom also played an important role in the unprecedented unrest of this period. The conclusions of this volume are useful for an understanding of the labour struggles that continue in Korea today and are relevant for policy makers from other emerging economies that wish to benefit from both the successes and failures of Korea's experience.

This volume is the last in an important and influential series of ten volumes produced jointly by the Harvard Institute for International Development and the Korea Development Institute on the first three decades of Korean economic development. It concentrates primarily on the late 1980s...The great value of the volume is the challenge it lays down in interpretation: the standard factors that many commentators put forward for Korea's economic growth--the social tradition, low wages, control, long hours--simply will not do, some for the whole period of development, and none in respect to the last decade. Statistical documentation is impressive, and the conclusions are, therefore, difficult to fault.--Keith Howard "Asian Affairs [UK "