Women paid 30.7% less than men in listed firms, 25.2% less in public offices

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

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Sun, December 3, 2023 | 19:29

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Women paid 30.7% less than men in listed firms, 25.2% less in public offices

Posted : 2023-09-06 16:19

Updated : 2023-09-07 14:59

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Family ministry vows to prevent women's career break, support their entry to high-quality jobs

By Jun Ji-hye

The salary gap between men and women in both listed companies and public offices in Korea still remained high last year, though the gap showed a decreasing trend year-on-year, according to a report announced by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, Wednesday.

The ministry's analysis of salaries of 2,716 listed companies showed that female workers received 60.15 million won ($45,200) annually on average, compared to male workers' 86.76 million won.

This marked a 30.7 percent gap in wages by gender, which was narrowed by 7.5 percentage points from the 38.1 percent difference tallied in 2021.

The ministry has announced the gender pay gap since 2021 in accordance with the 2020 revision to the Framework Act on Gender Equality. In 2021, the ministry announced the data for 2019 and 2020.

The gender pay gap for listed companies has fluctuated as the figure stood at 36.7 percent in 2019, 35.9 percent in 2020, 38.1 percent in 2021 and 30.7 percent in 2022.

This year's report also showed that men served an average of 11.9 years in listed companies and women served 8.9 years, with the difference in their career length marking 25.1 percent.

The gender salary gap appeared to be higher when the difference in the career length between genders was larger.

In 323 companies, where men's career length was more than 50 percent longer than women's, there was a 43.6 percent gender pay gap.

As for public offices, women earned 25.2 percent less than men on average last year, marking a decrease of 1.1 percentage points from 26.3 percent tallied a year earlier.

The average career length stood at 13.9 years for men and 9.5 years for women, marking a 31.5 percent difference.

"The report shows that the gender gap in salaries and career length has shown a decreasing trend," said Kang Min-jeong, a senior analyst at the Korean Women's Development Institute.

"This is mainly because the ratio of female workers and their career length have consistently increased."

In a separate survey conducted by the ministry showed that the employment rate for women exceeded the 60 percent mark for the first time last year.

The employment index for women aged 15 to 64 stood at 60 percent after increasing by 7.3 percentage points from 52.7 percent tallied in 2010.

However, the ratio of female workers who had low-paying jobs was 22.8 percent, nearly twofold the rate of men at 11.8 percent.

Forty-six percent of women held non-regular jobs, 15.4 percentage points higher than the 30.6 percent of men working in such positions.

In terms of monthly salaries, female workers received some 2.68 million won, compared to men's 4.13 million won.

Korea has failed to break away from the dishonor of taking the No. 1 position in the difference between the median full-time earnings of men and women, among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), for the last 26 years since the country joined the OECD in 1996.

In the latest OECD report, Korea posted 31.1 percent in the gender wage gap as of 2021. This was far higher than the OECD average of 11.9 percent.

According to the ministry, one of the major causes for the gender salary gap is women's career break following marriage, which usually accompanies having and raising children. This sometimes leaves no choice for women but to opt for low-wage or temporary positions when they seek reemployment after a long career break.

The ministry said it has made a variety of efforts to support women's career breaks and help them fill high-quality jobs when they seek reemployment.

It has also expanded childcare support to create a culture calling for "working together and looking after children."

"We will continue to draw up measures to utilize female workers seeking reemployment by supporting their entry to high-quality positions," Minister of Gender Equality and Family Kim Hyun-sook said.

jjh@koreatimes.co.kr