Why are women paid less than men in Korea?

Members of Korean Women Workers Association do a performance symbolizing breaking through the "glass ceiling" in downtown Seoul, Saturday, four days ahead of International Women's Day (March 8). Newsis

Despite equal economic opportunities, lower wages for women still prevalent

By Lee Yeon-woo

A human resources expert with seven years of work experience in the field recently stirred controversy in an online community. The woman, identified only by her surname Kim, wrote in a posting that she had quit her job at one of the country's leading conglomerates to take care of her child.

She came back to work at a small company after a break of a few years only to find her salary there was similar to that of a junior-level employee who had just joined the company. When she took the issue to management, she was told that it was due to "a risk of hiring women on career breaks."

"There are men on career breaks too. Their explanations are not convincing at all … I know this is discrimination, but honestly, I cannot report this case to the labor ministry as I'm worried about the reference check when I seek a new job in the future," she wrote to an online community for human resource experts.

"This wage gap between men and women … Is every small company like this? I don't care about the low wage. I only want to work in a company that guarantees the same amount of work and the same amount of wage."

Kim is not the only one suffering from the "gender wage gap" in Korea. As of 2021, Korea's gender wage gap stood at 31.1 percent according to OECD data. For every $1,000 men receive in salary, their female peers get only $689.

In another report released by World Bank on Friday, titled "Women, Business and the Law 2023," Korea scored 25 out of 100 in the "pay" category, followed by only nine countries, including Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt and Syria. Meanwhile, Korea got full marks in other categories such as mobility, workplace, marriage, assets and pension, ranking at 65th out of 190 countries.

"Gender biases and inequalities that have placed women in low-wage occupations, such as differences in jobs and hours worked, as well as women's disproportionate caregiving responsibilities, contribute to the gender wage gap. The persistence of this income disparity between men and women negatively affects the growth of a country's economy," the report wrote.

Korea's seniority system in the workplace is cited as a major cause of the phenomenon. It gives preferences to workers based on years of service. As most women pause their careers due to childbirth and childcare, they face disadvantages in wages as a result.

"Even though women who come back from childcare leave do the same work as men, the halted period is excluded when considering work experience, causing wage gaps," explained Kwon Soon-won, a business administration professor at Sookmyung Women's University.

"Companies offer a salary based on documents such as contracts and income filing from the previous employer. Halting a career means that you missed the opportunity to negotiate and raise your salary every year. So (after childbirth) women cannot help but receive a lower salary than men" said Kang, an HR official from an IT company who asked to be identified only by her surname.

Some say that the wage gap is due to the fact that those employed in physically demanding and high-paying jobs are mostly men.

"In my company, the majority of high-paying positions such as IT developers are men. One female developer for 10 male developers. Women are most represented among designers, but their salaries are much lower compared with developers," Kang said.

Female jobseekers look at job postings at a job fair held in Busan, in this 2018 file photo. Yonhap

However, women still earn less than their male counterparts doing the same jobs, according to a study published by Nature Human Behaviour.

"Seventeen years have passed since female students outnumbered male students in terms of college enrollment. But the wage gap hasn't been narrowed. Why? It's because of the structure that allows different wages although both genders do the same work," said Kim Nan-joo, a researcher from the Korean Women's Development Institute.

Based on 2017 Statistics Korea data, Kim concluded that 36.3 percent of the wage gap exists due to "differences," such as work period or scale of the workplace. But she could not find any explanation for the remaining 63.7 percent other than "discrimination."

Kim called for increasing the ratio of women in high-ranking positions to tackle the imbalance. "Europe, which has a smaller wage gap than Korea, has even set a quota for female executives in the workplace," she said. "Korea has just taken a baby step with its law." The current law revised in 2021 mandates gender diversity when forming a board of directors.

Narrowing the gender wage gap is also noted as a measure to pull up the plummeting birth rate.

"The wage gap is a hurdle for a woman in choosing childbirth and rearing. As the two are deeply connected, the wage gap problem should be solved first so that it can positively affect other policies aimed at boosting the birth rate," said Rep. Yang Ki-dae of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea.

As they face such disadvantages due to their gender, young women say they find it unfair when society "pressures" women to give birth, while talking about the country's record low birth rate all the time.

"Aside from the happiness of having my own child, what do I get after giving birth? A lower wage? I studied and worked harder than anyone else. I don't want to get left behind in my career," said Lee Yeon-joo, a 26-year-old office worker.