1. Gender Gaps in Labor Market and Policy Responses in Korea
Toward Gender Focused Governance Reforms
Bangkok, Thailand
Gender Gaps in Labor Market and
Policy Responses in Korea
Jongsoog Kim .

2. Contents 1. Gender Gaps in Labor Market 2. The Problems
3. Policy Responses in Korea
4. Remaining Things to do… .

3. Gender Inequality in labor market contributes to Gender Gaps
Gender Development Index(UNDP)
: Third Group(104th) of 161 countries (2015)
Gender Inequality Index(UNDP)
: 23rd of 155 countries(2015)
Gender Gap Index(WEF)
: 116th of 144 countries(2016)
Pointed out
Economic activities
Higher positions
Wage gaps
Gender Inequality in labor market contributes to Gender Gaps

4. Economic participation of Men and Women
1. Gender Gaps
Economic participation of Men and Women
Source: Gender Inequality Index(GII) UNDP

5. Women’s employment by age
1. Gender Gaps
Women’s employment by age
Career disruption during childbirth and rearing
Back to labor market when they are 40’s and into low paying jobs
Source: OECD Employment 2017 Database

6. 1. Gender Gaps Gender Wage Gap
Source: OECD.stat( (2016)

7. Women in National Parliament
1. Gender Gaps
Women in National Parliament
Source: Gender Inequality Index(GII) UNDP

8. 1. Gender Gaps Women in Business
Source: Economist(March, 2017), Glass Ceiling Index

9. 2. Problems The career interruption of Women in Korea :
Not a personal choice but a structural problem
54.3% of married women have experienced career interruption
Only 39.4% without the experience of career interruption
Women with experience of career interruption
Women with an experience of resigning from jobs due to reasons of marriage, pregnancy, child-care, looking after family members and haven’t returned to workforce since
18.3%
Women with an experience of resigning from jobs due to reasons of marriage, pregnancy, child-care, looking after family members and maintaining the first employment since returning to workforce
14.9%
Women with an experience of resigning from jobs due to reasons of marriage, pregnancy, child-care, looking after family members and changed jobs a couple of times since returning to workforce
11.5%
Women with an experience of resigning from jobs due to reasons of marriage, pregnancy, child-care, looking after family members and have returned to workforce since
9.6%
Women without experience of career interruption
Women with no experience of resigning from jobs due to marriage, pregnancy, child-care and looking after family members
29.4%
Women who have been employed in the past but have no experience of resigning from jobs due to marriage, pregnancy, child-care and looking after family members
10%
Women who have never been employed
6.2%
Source: Kim et. Al (2013). Survey on Career Disrupted Women. Ministry of Gender Equality

10. 2. Problems
Women with career interruption reaches roughly 2,140,000, exceeds 20% of married women
The scale and proportion of married women with career interruption and who still remain unemployed is large and high
Women in her 30s was the age group with the highest number of career interrupted women.
The average period of career interruption :
Above 5 years - Below 10 years was 23.4%, Above 10 years – below 20 years was 22.2%
Category
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Married women between the age of 15~54
9,866
9,747
9,713
9,561
9,420
9,273
9,053
Unemployed women (Rate)
41.4
41.5
41.8
40.7
40.5
39.8
39.1
Career-interrupted Women (Rate)
19.3
20.3
20.1
22.4
21.8
20.6
20.0
Career Interrupted Women
The Duration of Career Interruption
Source: Career Disrupted Women. National Statistics Office (2017).

11. 2. Problems Discrimination in HRM
Promotion and Evaluation by Male centered culture in organization
Source: Jongsoog Kim et. al(2013). Panel Study on Women Manager.

12. 2. Problems
Greater ratio of women in temporary employment, gender wage gap remains wide
Higher ratio of women in temporary employment and concentration in temporary employment becomes apparent according to women’s life cycle
Korea is the country with the largest gender wage gap; however, the improvement is sluggish
Source: Jongsoog Kim (2014). Women’s labor market reform. mimeo.

13. Women’s low employment drives low fertility
2. Problems
Women’s low employment drives low fertility
Compared to the major developed countries, Korea demonstrates low women’s employment and birth rate(2016)
Korea
Sweden
France
1.8
2.2
1.6
2.0
1.4
1.2
OECD Average Women’s Employment Rate 62.0
Iceland
Hungary
Chile
Greece
Italy
Spain
Ireland
Japan
USA UK
Canada
Switzerland
Norway
Austria
Netherlands
Slovenia
Portugal
Czech
Estonia
Germany
Denmark
Luxembourg
Australia
Slovak
Finland
NewZealand
Belgium
Poland 55 60 65 75 80 90 70 85
OECD Average Total Birth Rate 1.71
Women’s Employment Rate (25-64 Age)
Total Birth Rate
Source:

14. Human rights and welfare
3. Policy Responses
Institutions in Korea
Policy Area
Contents
Title
Gender mainstreaming
Gender Impact analysis on laws and policies. Gender budget. Gender statistics. Gender education. National gender equality index
Act on Gender Equality
Social Participation
Affirmative action: participation in national committees, public jobs, parliament, economic activities.
Women’s HRD: women’s HR database, education and training.
Right of parenting: parental leave, work and life balance
Human rights and welfare
Anti discrimination. National responsibility against Sexual Violence and harassment
Social Culture
Gender equal media, education, family relation. Gender responsive development and international relations

15. 3. Policy Responses Policy Area Contents Title Equal opportunity
Regulation of direct and indirect discrimination, Workplace harassment, Affirmative actions, Equal pay for equal valued work
Act on Equal Employment and work and family balance
Maternity protection, Work and life balance
Maternity, paternity, parental leaves, Reduction of working hours during childrearing for workers, Incentives to provide leaves, Workplace childcare centers for employers
Family Friendly Social circumstance
Family friendly firms and communities.
Family Friendly Certification on Firms.
Act on Family Friendly Social Circumstance

16. 3. Policy Responses
Public Employment System for Career Disrupted Women
consulting
training
matching
care
Higher Women Employment Rate ( 53.5 % in > 56.3% in 2016)
Lower Career Disrupted Women (22.4% in 2014-> 20.6% in 2016)

17. Parental Leave and gender equal effort
3. Policy Responses
Parental Leave and gender equal effort
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Total
3,763
6,816
9,304
10,700
13,670
21,185
29,145
35,400
41,733
58,137
64,069
69,616
76,833
87,339
89,795
90,123
Women
3,685
6,712
9,123
10,492
13,440
20,875
28,790
34,898
40,914
56,735
62,279
67,323
73,412
82,467
82,179
78,080
Men 78
104
181
208
230
310
355
502
819
1,402
1,790
2,293
3,421
4,872
7,616
12,043
Male ratio
2.1
1.5
1.9
1.7
1.2
1.4
2.0
2.4
2.8
3.3
4.5
5.6
8.5
13.4
Male Ratio: 2.1% in 2002 → 13.4% in 2017
Fathers’ Months: 3months 100% of regular wage
with up to 1,500,500(won/month)
→ 2,000,000(won/month) in 2018
Women’s Return after Parental Leave: 68.7% in > 76.9% in 2015
Choosing career: Career disruption is decreasing

18. 3. Policy Responses
Establishing an environment that allows parental leave and shortened working hours during child-rearing period for all business types
Establishing employment-friendly child-rearing mechanisms to increase women’s employment rate in child rearing period
The ratio of business types with parental leave policy (Unit: %)
The employment rate of women according to the youngest child’s age (Unit: %)
Source: Kim et. al. (2017)
Source: Jongsoog Kim et al. (2013)

19. Public Childcare System
3. Policy Responses
Public Childcare System
Workplace Childcare
Mandatory requirement: more than 500 employees (300 women employees)
53% in > 81% in 2016
Funded childcare either using childcare center or home care
0~2 years “full time/part time” for working parents
National evaluation and certification system:
80% of childcare center are certified

20. Principal/vice principal in
3. Policy Responses
Women in National Committees (%)
Women in Public Sector (%)
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Government
Executive
9.3
9.9 11
12.1
13.5
14.7
manager
11.5 13
14.8
16.4
17.2
18.8
Principal/vice principal in
school
24.6
27.2
29.4
34.2
37.3
40.6
Women Human Resource Database: total 94,110 women and 67,860 of them transferred in National Human Resource Database in 2017

21. 3. Policy Responses
Gender impact analysis on laws and policies
Gender responsive budgeting
91.4% of policies link gender impact analysis and gender budget

22. Improving Women’s Employment according to theirs life cycle
4. remaining things to do..
Improving Women’s Employment according to theirs life cycle
Enhancing fairness when entering into the labor market in youth employment : Promote women’s employment in quality jobs.
Strengthening maternity protection : Shortening working hours during pregnancy, expand maternity leave before and after giving birth, alleviate blind spot for maternity protection.
Establish work-family reconciliation and a gender-equal child-rearing environment : Alleviate long working-hours, stimulate parental leave.
Strengthening re-employment assistance mechanisms for women with career-interruption.

23. Establishing a Labor Market Environment
4. remaining things to do..
Establishing a Labor Market Environment
Increase flexibility : Proliferating Flexible Work System and Flextime.
Alleviating wage gap according to gender, strengthening assistance according to business and employment types to improve the working environment for female temporary employees.
Strengthening assistance mechanisms for female socially vulnerable group by linking employment and welfare.
Affirmative action to expand employment of women in diverse fields of work.

24. Establishing Social Infrastructure
4. remaining things to do..
Establishing Social Infrastructure
Implementing employee-friendly care policy : Strengthening child-care assistance for working women (Expanding the accessibility of child-care service for double-income families, improving the quality of care policy, strengthening financial assistance policy to subsidize the cost of care without undermining potential employees’ desire to seek employment).
Double-income family friendly tax system, financial assistance, strengthening social policies.
Strengthening legal mechanism to overcome gender discrimination and glass ceiling: Eliminating gender discrimination in utilizing female human resources in companies, establish a proactive national policy on training middle managers, quota system to increase female executives.
Strengthening career guidance to increase diversification of women’s career paths.

25. Gender Gaps in Labor Market and Policy Responses in Korea
THANK YOU .
Gender Gaps in Labor Market and Policy Responses in Korea
Jongsoog Kim