by STEVE HAN
South Korean women in their 20s are outpacing their male counterparts in the country’s job market at the highest ever recorded rate, according to recent data released by Statistics Korea.
The workforce participation rate among female twenty-somethings in South Korea rose to 64.6 percent in August while the rate for men in the same age group dropped to 62 percent. The 2.6 percent gap is the widest the margin has ever been since women in their 20s surpassed their male counterparts in the job market for the first time in the second quarter of 2012.
Pundits are saying the main reason for the recent surge in women’s workforce participation rate is the increase in highly educated young females. Today’s young women in South Korea are believed to be better prepared to pursue professional careers in comparison to the traditional homemaking roles of the past.
Even older South Korean women in their 30s are actively working as their workforce participation rate has also reached an all-time high at 58.7 percent in comparison to 93.8 percent among men, according to the data.
The 35.1 percent gap between South Korean men and women in their 30s is now at a record low. However, the stark contrast between the decrease in the number of working women and the exponential increase in the number of working men as they get older shows that there are reasonable doubts of job security for South Korean women.
While the decrease in the rate of working women as they age could be attributed to other factors including marriage and childcare, signs of gender discrimination in South Korea still remain an alarming issue. An average monthly salary of working women last year was around $1,600 USD compared to men’s $2,558, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labor.
Although college graduates in South Korea are equally divided between the two genders, the country ranked dead last among developed nations (OECD) in employment of female graduates last year at only 60.1 percent.
South Korea also has the largest salary gap between male and female workers at 39 percent while the OECD average was at just under 15 percent. Additionally, the overall workforce participation rate for women in South Korea is only at 55.2 percent, below the OECD average of 62.3 percent.
Photo via Daum
