By Lee Kyung-min
A higher educational background does not help female job-seekers, especially when they get older, a government study showed Monday.
According to Seoul Women’s Resources Development (SWRD), the employment rate of women with bachelor’s degrees or higher fell sharply compared to men as they aged.
The higher their educational background, the bigger the employment gap was between men and women.
For high school graduates, the female employment rate was higher than that of males. “There are many jobs for female high school graduates such as simple bookkeeping jobs. Small- to medium- sized companies prefer young workers fresh out of high school,” said an official.
The gap widened for university graduates and those with masters or doctorate degrees.
Only education majors had about the same employment rate, 72 percent, for both men and women.
As for university graduates, men’s employment rate was 55.6 percent, four percentage points higher than that of women’s 51.3 percent.
For male postgraduates, the rate was 68.9 percent, 10 percentage points higher than women’s 58.5 percent.
Experts say it reflects companies’ tacit sentiment of still preferring woman to men as employees.
“All recruiters say that they hire based on merit, not sex. But we cannot say the longstanding practice is completely gone,” said Korean Women’s Development Institute researcher Yi Tack-meon, who authored the study.
He added that more government policies are needed to support women who come back to work after years of hiatus raising children.
“What is more worrying than the employment rate is that there are not enough quality jobs for women in their late 30s to 40s. All they can get is some after school teaching jobs. Although the government has been increasing its support with women-friendly policies such as giving incentives to companies that implement paternity leave, the change is not immediately reflected in company policy,” Yi said.