@article{ART003220580},
author={CHOI SIHYUN},
title={Homeownership Discourse in 1990s Korean Women’s Magazines and the Formation of the Woman Financial Subject - Focusing on the magazine Woman Sense},
journal={Journal of Popular Narrative},
issn={1738-3188},
year={2025},
volume={31},
number={2},
pages={119-166}
TY - JOUR
AU - CHOI SIHYUN
TI - Homeownership Discourse in 1990s Korean Women’s Magazines and the Formation of the Woman Financial Subject - Focusing on the magazine Woman Sense
JO - Journal of Popular Narrative
PY - 2025
VL - 31
IS - 2
PB - The Association of Popular Narrative
SP - 119
EP - 166
SN - 1738-3188
AB - This study examines how women financial subjects were narratively constructed during the early stage of housing financialization in South Korea by analyzing personal essays and case articles on “homeownership” published in Korean women’s magazines in the 1990s. These magazines functioned not merely as sources of financial information but as everyday cultural devices that taught readers financial ethics and gendered practices. In this process, women’s desire for homeownership was legitimized through its close alignment with the moral duties of housewives, while the structural causes of housing insecurity were obscured and individualized through narratives of “bad landlords and suffering tenants.” The practice of purchasing housing through thrift and mortgage borrowing was framed as a moral obligation of women responsible for family well-being, through which readers gradually internalized financial responsibility and gendered self-discipline.
Amid the expansion of housing supply and financial liberalization during the 1990s, women actively entered the financialization process through housing purchases, resulting in a transformation in which the private domain of the family became institutionally and culturally integrated into financial markets. This shift illustrates the concrete dynamics of women's incorporation into financial markets at the level of everyday life and household economy—a process characterized by the feminization of finance. Such practices suggest that symbolic and everyday financialization had already been internalized prior to the institutionalization of state-led housing financialization that formally began with the establishment of the Korea Housing Finance Corporation(KHFC) in 2004. By analyzing these narrative constructions, this study reveals the gendered trajectories of housing financialization and the formation of female financial subjects in South Korea.
KW - 1990s Korea;women’s magazines;homeownership;financial subjectification;housing financilization;Feminization of finance;housewife;‘Woman Sense’
DO -
UR -
ER -
CHOI SIHYUN. (2025). Homeownership Discourse in 1990s Korean Women’s Magazines and the Formation of the Woman Financial Subject - Focusing on the magazine Woman Sense. Journal of Popular Narrative, 31(2), 119-166.
CHOI SIHYUN. 2025, "Homeownership Discourse in 1990s Korean Women’s Magazines and the Formation of the Woman Financial Subject - Focusing on the magazine Woman Sense", Journal of Popular Narrative, vol.31, no.2 pp.119-166.
CHOI SIHYUN "Homeownership Discourse in 1990s Korean Women’s Magazines and the Formation of the Woman Financial Subject - Focusing on the magazine Woman Sense" Journal of Popular Narrative 31.2 pp.119-166 (2025) : 119.
CHOI SIHYUN. Homeownership Discourse in 1990s Korean Women’s Magazines and the Formation of the Woman Financial Subject - Focusing on the magazine Woman Sense. 2025; 31(2), 119-166.
CHOI SIHYUN. "Homeownership Discourse in 1990s Korean Women’s Magazines and the Formation of the Woman Financial Subject - Focusing on the magazine Woman Sense" Journal of Popular Narrative 31, no.2 (2025) : 119-166.
CHOI SIHYUN. Homeownership Discourse in 1990s Korean Women’s Magazines and the Formation of the Woman Financial Subject - Focusing on the magazine Woman Sense. Journal of Popular Narrative, 31(2), 119-166.
CHOI SIHYUN. Homeownership Discourse in 1990s Korean Women’s Magazines and the Formation of the Woman Financial Subject - Focusing on the magazine Woman Sense. Journal of Popular Narrative. 2025; 31(2) 119-166.
CHOI SIHYUN. Homeownership Discourse in 1990s Korean Women’s Magazines and the Formation of the Woman Financial Subject - Focusing on the magazine Woman Sense. 2025; 31(2), 119-166.
CHOI SIHYUN. "Homeownership Discourse in 1990s Korean Women’s Magazines and the Formation of the Woman Financial Subject - Focusing on the magazine Woman Sense" Journal of Popular Narrative 31, no.2 (2025) : 119-166.
