Why are women paid less than men in Korea?

• Published date: 07 March 2023
• Publication title: The Korea Times

A human resources expert with seven years of work experience in the field recently stirred controversy in an online community. The woman, identified only by her surname Kim, wrote in a posting that she had quit her job at one of the country's leading conglomerates to take care of her child.

She came back to work at a small company after a break of a few years only to find her salary there was similar to that of a junior-level employee who had just joined the company. When she took the issue to management, she was told that it was due to "a risk of hiring women on career breaks."

"There are men on career breaks too. Their explanations are not convincing at all … I know this is discrimination, but honestly, I cannot report this case to the labor ministry as I'm worried about the reference check when I seek a new job in the future," she wrote to an online community for human resource experts.

"This wage gap between men and women … Is every small company like this? I don't care about the low wage. I only want to work in a company that guarantees the same amount of work and the same amount of wage."

Kim is not the only one suffering from the "gender wage gap" in Korea. As of 2021, Korea's gender wage gap stood at 31.1 percent according to OECD data. For every $1,000 men receive in salary, their female peers get only $689.

In another report released by World Bank on Friday, titled "Women, Business and the Law 2023," Korea scored 25 out of 100 in the "pay" category, followed by only nine countries, including Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt and Syria. Meanwhile, Korea got full marks in other categories such as mobility, workplace, marriage, assets and pension, ranking at 65th out of 190 countries.

"Gender biases and inequalities that have placed women in low-wage occupations, such as differences in jobs and hours worked, as well as women's disproportionate caregiving responsibilities, contribute to the gender wage gap. The persistence of this income disparity between men and women negatively affects the growth of a country's economy," the report wrote.

Korea's seniority system in the workplace is cited as a major cause of the phenomenon. It gives preferences to workers based on years of service. As most women pause their careers due to childbirth and childcare, they face disadvantages in wages as a result.

"Even though women who come back from childcare leave do the same work as men, the halted period is excluded when considering work experience, causing wage gaps,"...