Gender inequality still prevalent in South Korea’s workplace

The employment rate for women in South Korea was at 51.2% last year, which was 18.8 percentage points lower than the male employment rate.
By: | September 9, 2022
Topics: Compensation and Benefits | DE&I | News | South Korea

Gender inequality is still widespread in South Korea’s workplaces, according to data from the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.

The employment rate among women stood at 51.2% last year, which is 18.8 percentage points lower than the male employment rate. Among all female workers in the country, 47.4% were irregular workers and 22.1% received low income, scoring a proportion higher than their male counterparts in both categories, reports Korea Bizwire.

Female wage workers earned 15,804 won (US$11.41) per hour, which was 69.8% of what men earned. There were also more women benefiting from South Korea’s National Basic Livelihood Security Programme, at 55.4% or 1.26 million women, up by 131,000 people from 2020.

Among newlywed women between 15 and 54 years of age, 3.24 million were unemployed.

READ: Some small business employees South Korea paid below minimum wage

There were 1.45 million women who experienced career interruptions due to marriage, pregnancy or child-rearing, accounting for 17.4% of all married women. Of these, women quit their jobs mostly due to child-rearing (43.2%), followed by marriage (27.4%) and pregnancy/childbirth (22.1%).