(image: Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Sept. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — A significant proportion of South Korean women have experienced workplace sexual harassment, a survey showed Sunday.
According to a survey conducted by local pollster Embrain Public, upon the request of the civic organizations Gapjil 119 and the Beautiful Foundation, 35.2 percent of women said that they had experienced sexual harassment at work since they began their careers.
Among non-regular female workers, this figure was even higher at 38.4 percent.
When asked about the seriousness of sexual harassment among the 260 respondents who reported experiencing it at work, more than half, or 58.1 percent, considered it to be serious.
The share of those who deemed the level of sexual harassment to be serious was 68 percent among female workers, 10 percentage points higher than the average, and 24.1 percentage points higher than the 43.9 percent reported by male workers.
Among non-regular workers, the share of those who said that the level of sexual harassment was serious stood at 65.3 percent, 13.8 percentage points higher than that of regular workers (51.5 percent).
Notably, 7 out of 10 non-regular female workers said that the sexual harassment they experienced was severe.
When it came to identifying the offenders of sexual harassment, 47.7 percent pointed to superiors who are not executives as the most common culprits, followed by executives (CEOs, executives, and management) at 21.5 percent.
Regarding the gender of the sexual harassment offenders, 88.2 percent of female workers cited “the opposite gender,” while 42.1 percent of male workers mentioned “the same gender.”
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
