Gender Discrimination in Korea

Seoul City night scene, South Korea

Overview

Due its rapid industrialization from the 1960s to the 1990s, Korea now ranks as one of the world's top fifteen economies (International Monetary Fund 2010), resulting in a rapid increase in the number of professional positions within Korean businesses. Nevertheless, Korean females continue to be marginalized in leadership and decision-making contexts, with limited employment opportunities in middle and upper management or executive or boardroom positions (Siegel et al. 2011; World Bank 2007). The female labor force participation rate jumped from 39.3% in the 1970s to 50% in 2008, decreasing slightly to 49.2% in 2011. Recent research demonstrates greater profitability for firms that employ women in higher level positions in Korea, but their overall employment rate is 10% below that of key advanced nations (Werner, Devillard, and Sancier-Sultan 2010). A noticeable wage gap exists between comparably educated men and women who perform the same jobs (Cho, Kwon, and Ahn 2010; Jones and Tsutsumi 2009). Sex-segregation is more predominant in traditional societies than in advanced nations in educational levels, fields of study, and occupational segregation (Buchman, Kriesei, and Sacchi 2010; Yukongki and Rowley 2006; Yukongdi and Benson 2006; Ahn 2006).

http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1370701810?pq-origsite=summon&accountid=14656

Gender Discrimination

Understanding of Gender

Discrimination

Korean Gender Discrimination In Wage Gap

paygap

1960s, excepting the years following the financial crisis in late 1997, the economic status of women in the labour market has been greatly enhanced in many respects. For the period 1963–2002, the labour force participation rate of women increased from 37.0% to 49.7%, raising women’s share in the total labour force from 34.4% to 41.3%. On the qualitative side, the share of college graduates in the women’s labour force soared from 2.6% to 20.7% between 1980 and 2002, reducing the disparity with the men’s ratio, which tripled from 9.2% to 29.5% during the same period. For the younger age groups, however, this gender gap ineducational attainment is far less apparent. Top hierarchical occupations such as professionals and technicians are less likely to be affected by gender discrimination, whereas occupations such as production workers and sales/service workers are most susceptible to gender discrimination in all industrial sectors.

http://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/doi/pdf/10.1080/1016873042000299990

Korean Culture and Gender

Feminism In Korea

Korean Female President

Discrimination in Modern Society

Today's Korean Society and Gender Role

Modern Korean Society and Issues

References