By Yoon Ja-young
Men working at large companies are earning on average 30 million won more annually than their female colleagues, a report showed Monday.
It also showed that Korean Re, a reinsurance company, was the most generous in terms of salaries, with male employees earning on average 115 million won last year.
According to the report by Job Korea, a job market information provider, the average annual salary of employees at the country’s 90 major companies stood at 75.6 million won last year.
However, there was a significant gap between men and women. While male workers earned 80.7 million won per year, female workers were paid 49.3 million won, on average.
According to experts, some of the gender pay gap can be attributed to the fact that men tend to continue working at the same company until they reach managerial level, while women often quit before that due to reasons such as childbirth and childcare.
At the 90 firms in the Job Korea survey, male workers have worked for 12.6 years on average, while their female peers have worked for 7.9 years.
According to Kim Nan-joo, a researcher at the Korean Women’s Development Institute, 37.8 percent of the gender pay gap is due to such explainable differences as how many years they have worked, working hours, industries where they work and education level, etc.
However, 62.2 percent of the pay gap is simply due to the gender discrimination.
“It is crucial for female workers to continue with their career despite childbirth to prevent the excessive pay gap. The employers, employees and the government should also work together to get rid of the irrational discrimination in the labor market,” she said.
Among the companies in the report, Korean Re topped the salary list, paying 115 million won to male employees and 79 million won to female employees last year.
Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance, Samsung Electronics, Hanwha Life Insurance, SK Telecom, Korea Exchange Bank, Samsung Life Insurance, KB Kookmin Bank, Citibank Korea, and Shinhan Bank also paid their male workers more than 100 million won last year.
For female workers, SK Telecom, Kia Motor, Samsung Electronics, and Hyundai Motors were the most generous, with average annual salaries surpassing 70 million won.
The ratio of male workers stood at 75.1 percent in these large firms in the survey, while females made up 24.9 percent.
The ratio of female workers was the highest at Lotte Shopping, with 68.1 percent of the employees being female, followed by Emart, Hana Bank and Dongbu Insurance.
Companies like Kia Motor, Hyundai Steel, Hyundai Motors, POSCO and Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction, meanwhile, had more than 95 percent of workers who are male.