Korea's female students excelled their male counterparts in college entrance last year, but their economic participation still lagged far behind, indicating many female workers have yet to be fully utilized, a report showed Monday.
According to the report by Statistics Korea, 80.5 percent of female high school seniors entered college last year, which was higher than 77.6 percent for males. That marked the second straight year that women outperformed men in terms of the college entrance ratio.
In 2009, women's college entrance ratio stood at 82.4 percent, which was 0.8 percentage points higher than male students.
The widened gap appears to be in line with the growing presence of well-educated and talented women in many professional areas long dominated by their male counterparts, according to the report.
The report showed that women made up 10.5 percent of the total number of lawyers in 2009, up from 1.9 percent a decade ago. The ratio of female judges rose to 22.8 percent from 6.3 percent, while that of female prosecutors also jumped from 1.5 percent to 15.6 percent over the same period.
However, women's overall economic participation remains quite lower, the report showed, indicating that the nation's well-educated and talented female workers might not be fully capitalized.
In 2010, women's economic participation ratio stood at 49.4 percent, slightly up from 49.2 percent a year earlier, the report showed. It is still far lower than men's 73 percent.
In particular, the women's economic participation ratio plunges when they reach the age for getting married and having children, the report showed.
Of women aged 25-29, the economic participation ratio hit the highest of 69.8 percent, but it fell to 54.6 percent among those aged between 30 and 34, the report showed. From their late 30s, the ratio starts to rise again.
Experts said that the plunge in the ratio among those in their early 30s shows that many of them might have to give up their career for housekeeping duty after getting married or having children. (Yonhap)