Korea Marks Biggest Wage Gap Between Genders

By Yoon Ja-young
Staff Reporter

Korea has the biggest wage gap between male workers and their female colleagues among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries.

According to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, the OECD said in a report Thursday that Korean men are paid on average 38 percent more than women.

The wage gap is more than two times that of the OECD average of 18.8 percent.

Japan was also very unequal in wages, with males getting 33 percent more than females.

Germany, Austria, Canada and the U.K. also marked over a 20-percent wage difference between the genders.

Korea also marked a wide gap in employment rate. The employment rate gap between males and females was 30 percent in Korea, the fourth biggest gap following Turkey, Mexico and Greece.

The OECD attributed the gap to deep-rooted gender discrimination. It added that males are working in high-paying, regular, and professional sectors compared to women.

In the meantime, Korean women have only 1.08 children on average, the lowest among OECD member countries.

Mexico, Turkey, Iceland, the United States, France and New Zealand, meanwhile, had a birth rate of two children or more.

Korea also recorded the lowest ratio of birth by teenage moms. Only 3.5 percent of mothers were teenagers here, while over half of babies were born to teenagers in the United States.

The rate of births among unmarried couples marked only 1.3 percent in Korea, the lowest among OECD member countries. The ratio hovered over 50 percent, however, in Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Canada.

Korean women gave birth to their first baby at the age of 29.1 on average, 1.3 years higher than the OECD average.

chizpizza@koreatimes.co.kr

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