James Joo-Jin Kim Center for Korean Studies
2025-26 Moon Family Postdoctoral Fellow in Korean Studies
Sejin Um is a sociologist of work and organizations, culture, and gender, with a regional focus on Korea. She is currently working on her first book manuscript, tentatively titled Good Job If You Can Leave It: The Career Dilemma of Korean Office Workers. The book draws on over 120 in-depth interviews with young, current and former white-collar employees of Korea’s conglomerate firms (chaebol) to examine the tensions that arise when organizational structures premised on stability and loyalty clash with the broader culture that prizes mobility and self-fulfillment. It shows that workers grapple with the fear of “falling behind,” or failing to meet the prevailing cultural ideal of self-entrepreneurship. The book develops the concept of “stagnation anxiety” to capture this subjective dimension of insecurity and further examines the different ways in which workers respond to it. These findings suggest that shifting cultural understandings of what constitutes a good career have created new dilemmas even for those in highly secure employment.
Sejin’s work has appeared in Gender, Work & Organization and Social Sciences. She completed her Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University in 2025. Prior to NYU, she received her MA from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and BA from Korea University, Seoul.
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