ROK Government Releases Gender Wage Gap Data for the First Time
Here is some gender wage gap information from the ROK government:
Male workers in listed firms in South Korea earned 1.6 times higher wages than their female colleagues last year, a government survey showed Thursday.
Men were paid an average 79.8 million won (US$68,800) in 2020, while their women counterparts received 51.1 million won, according to the study on 2,149 listed firms by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.
The gender wage gap, referring to the rate of men’s average pay to that of women, reached 35.9 percent last year, far higher than 12.8 percent, the latest average of the Organization for the Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released by British weekly The Economist, according to the ministry.
It is the first time the South Korean government had unveiled the average earnings by gender in local listed firms.
Yonhap
So why is the ROK government revealing this for the first time? Could it be because of the ROK presidential election within a year where the ruling party can claim only they can save women from gender discrimination?
Anyway if people are wondering why there is a wage gap here is part of the reason:
The average length of corporate service was 12.2 years for male workers and 8.2 years for female workers last year. The difference in their career length marked 32.6 percent in 2020, down 2.6 percentage points from 35.2 percent tallied the previous year.
The ministry said the wage gap tends to be in line with the disparity in workers’ length of service. It hits 28.7 percent when both genders have worked the same length of time, but the gap hikes to 46.1 percent when men’s length of service is 50 percent longer than that of women’s.
Time in service plays a major role in the gap which makes sense. What the article does not say is what is the difference in hours worked? Are the male workers putting in more overtime than female employees? This could further explain the wage gap as well.
Another reason the length of service is different is child bearing. It’s illegal in the US but happens that women who are pregnant or have a child are laid off and depending on the state with or without cause, but any HR manager can find a reason to terminate employment. Don’t think Korea has stronger laws regarding termination of employment based on gender than the US considering the patriarchal society.
While working in Korea in 1996-1998, the Korean women on the team did more work than the men, but also left work at 9pm, whereas the rest of us were compelled to stay until 11 or 12.
One of the items I reported back to their leadership was hiring professional newspaper readers and cigarette smokers was not really going to assist their corporate goals.
Strangely, in spite of copiupous documentation, my leadership did not include that in the final report to our joint-venture. So I brought it up myself, socially, of course. Gotta love that soju game.
Completely meaningless set of data.