Only one female serves as an executive at South Korea's top 10 state-run financial enterprises, data showed Monday, raising concerns over the severe gender imbalance in the sector's C-suite.
According to the data by public information portal Alio, females accounted for only 1.6 percent of the total 61 executives employed at such financial firms, implying a glass ceiling still exists in promotions.
"While females can technically become an executive, there are still barriers against women," said Yang In-sook, a researcher at Korean Women's Development Institute.
According to Yang, females are also more vulnerable to lose their jobs especially in case of an economic slowdown, which makes it harder for them to become executives.
"Career development, position assignment and childcare policies provided by an employer are just as important as hiring female workers," said Noh Jung-ran, the only female executive at the Korea Asset Management Corp.
Meanwhile, women made up only a quarter of employees recruited by the state financial companies between 2008 and June this year, compared with 44.65 percent for the total 288 state-owned public corporations, the data also showed.
The imbalance also existed among the country's officialdom, where females accounted for only 3.7 percent of the 1,338 high-ranking officials as of May, market watchers said.
The glass ceiling is also thick at private companies. Out of 1,167 executives at Samsung Electronics Co., South Korea's top market-cap company, only 1.5 percent were women, according to the watchers. (Yonhap)