CURRENT JOB, DESIRABLE JOB, AND GOOD JOB*1

This paper examines several issues concerning people's perception on the desirable job. Its basic assumption is that examining a desirable job will contribute to a better understanding on the quality of a current job. Major findings from our studies may be summarized as follows. First, speaking of the desirability, we find that self-employment, jobs in large firms, and jobs in the public sector are generally considered to be desirable over working as employees, jobs in medium to small firms, and jobs in the private sector. Second, the process through which such preferences are formed seems to be multi-dimensional in nature. Current job is central to understanding such preference, but gender and age also seem to play an important role. Third, among these three sets of preferences, we find that the preference for self-employment needs to be interpreted rather differently from preferences for large firms and for the public sector. It appears that the preference for self-employment stems from the 'boundedness of preference for self-employment' among the labor force in Korea. For the general picture that arises from our study is that self-employment may be a factor that constitutes a good job for some people, but that such people are likely to be the ones who are rather disadvantaged in the labor market