[The Typing Baker] Why Is Real Estate Speculation Blamed on the Wife?

The word ‘jipsaram’ (housewife) shows that women are responsible not only for household chores such as cleaning, cooking, and laundry but also for childcare and other matters within the home. The same applies to home ownership and real estate investment.

As the issue of ‘gender’ has firmly established itself as a major topic in Korean society, another hot potato, ‘real estate,’ has intersected with gender. unravels this intriguing and question-provoking combination of gender and real estate through the diverse voices of women.

The family is the basic reproductive unit of the nation. The state has attracted nuclear families to housing through various housing policies such as subscription and loans. The basic factors determining success in the apartment subscription lottery, which has become like a lottery, are the period of being without a home, the duration of subscription account membership, and the number of dependents. In particular, in the recently expanded special supply for newlyweds, the number of children determines the outcome.

Women are responsible for family affairs, big and small. Home ownership is no exception. "Women who believe that their responsibility for childcare and housework is greater than their husbands’ also feel the same about home ownership. For mothers, the housing environment is a condition for survival and carries the weight of determining their children’s future." The desire for home ownership stems from a mother’s deep love for her children. ‘Hak(se)gwon’ (school district) is a key variable in the real estate market. Women develop a sense of mission to prepare a safety net to protect their families.

The top 20% of housing prices in the Seoul metropolitan area have exceeded an average of 1.5 billion KRW for the first time. According to the monthly housing price trend time series statistics from KB Kookmin Bank Liv Real Estate on the 2nd, the top 20% housing prices in the metropolitan area in August recorded an average of 1,508.93 million KRW. This is the highest since KB began releasing metropolitan area statistics in April 2013. The photo shows apartments in downtown Seoul as seen from Namsan, Seoul, on the 2nd.

Korean ‘jipsaram’ have regarded home ownership as a problem they must solve themselves and have developed their housing aspirations. The development of Gangnam in the 70s and 80s was a period of quantitative expansion for jipsaram. The terms ‘bokdeokbang’ (real estate agency) and ‘bokbuin’ (real estate housewife) became popular. Then society began to criticize them. Newspapers in the 1980s identified bokbuin as the main culprits disrupting society. The 1980 film ‘Bokbuin’ directed by Im Kwon-taek shows this typical narrative. Mrs. Han, a thrifty housewife, made a fortune through apartment subscriptions. She began to look down on her husband and started socializing with other bokbuin. Eventually, she was caught in a land fraud and ended up in handcuffs.

Before criticizing real estate speculation, there is a question to ask before pointing out the ‘immorality’ of bokbuin. Did bokbuin create the speculation market alone and play alone? Real estate speculation in Korean society became widespread along with urbanization. It was a joint product of the military regime, municipal officials, brokers, and developers. However, they pointed fingers at women, middle-class housewives who were publicly vulnerable.

Contradiction and hypocrisy persist even now. "My wife did it, I didn’t know. I was so busy with work that I couldn’t properly manage the household finances. So my wife got obsessed with investment... Anyway, since it was my wife’s doing, I apologize." Such statements are often heard in the media whenever real estate controversies involving high-ranking officials arise. The patriarchal family ideology and gender role notions that men should lead the household economy through public labor and transparent income have thus created the ‘feminization of speculation.’

(How Did Real Estate Become Women’s Business? / Choi Si-hyun / Changbi / 20,000 KRW)