Women in 30s forced out of job market
By Kim Tong-hyung
Women in their 30s are dropping out of the workforce at an alarming rate and the lack of family-friendly workplace policies is being blamed, a government report showed Monday.
The country has around 10.2 million economically active women, but only 49.4 percent of them had jobs as of the end of last year, Statistics Korea said. The figure represented an annual improvement of just 0.2 points and failed to recover the 50 percent-plus levels between 2005 and 2008.
About 73 percent of economically active men were employed in 2010, according to the official figures. Women accounted for 50.3 percent of the country’s population of 47.99 million last year.
Women in their mid-to-late 20s continue to be a valuable part in the country’s labor force, the national statics office said, which measured the economic activity rate among women aged between 25 and 29 at 69.8 percent last year.
However, the figure drops dramatically to 54.6 percent for women aged between 30 and 34, the pressure of working long hours and lack of maternity support taking a toll on mothers with young children.
The pay gap between men and women remains significant. On average, a female employee earned less than 70 percent of what their male counterparts took home last year. And the employment statistics for women are padded by casual and precarious jobs more to a degree than men’s, according to official data.
As if in compensation, women with a life expectancy of 83.8 can expect to live nearly 7 years longer than men (77).
“The pattern economic activity rate among women continues to show an ‘M’ shape across age groups, with the point of decline marked in the early 30s. Although the economic activity rate improves after the late-30s, when more mothers return to the workplace after their children reach a certain age, the persisting M pattern proves that balancing professional careers with family life continues to be a challenge for women,” said Seo Kyung-sook, a Statistics Korea official.
The country’s inability to take advantage of the glut in the female workforce is alarming when more old people, combined with a declining working age population, are resulting in murkier projections for long-term economic growth.
Korea currently has one of the lowest birth rates among maturing economies, with its 2010 figure standing at 1.22 births per woman, well below the 1.71 average of Organization for Economic Cooperation for Development (OECD) nations.
In recent years, government officials here have worked hard to introduce family-friendly policies, such as expanding tax benefits, providing longer maternity leave and establishing more daycare places for children of working mothers. But the effects of such changes have been subdued, thanks in part to a large number of companies reluctant to make significant changes to their working environment.
The Korea Employers Federation, an influential business lobby, claimed in a recent report that the government efforts to boost births are putting too much pressure on the finances of firms, which may prevent them from hiring women.
About 80.5 percent of female high school students qualified for college education last year, edging their male counterparts who managed 77.6 percent. About 75.1 percent of elementary school teachers were women as of last year and one out of four dentists were women as well.
The average salaries of female employees were 67 percent of that of men. And among the women getting monthly paychecks, only 34.5 percent of them had status as regular workers, compared to the 47.9 percent of men.
About 66.6 percent of married women said they spend time and money on cultural and leisure activities, such as watching performing arts, movies and sporting events, compared to the 88.9 percent of single women.
Some 68.5 percent of the single women surveyed said that men should equally share the burden of housework and childcare in a family. However, 64.1 percent of married women claimed it would be better for women to assume a leading role under the roof.