(image: Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, May 18 (Korea Bizwire) — Women currently working at a domestic company that has more than 100 employees were found to be getting paid 33 percent less in salary compared to their male counterparts.
The National Human Rights Commission of Korea announced these results yesterday after surveying 402 permanent male and female employees who had been employed for at least a year at their workplace.
A total of 112 human resource specialists were also surveyed for the study.
In addition to the 33 percent salary gap between genders, the pay gap was greatest for entry-level positions at 24.4 percent, followed by a smaller gap at the levels of manager (6.1 percent) and section head (2.6 percent).
But at higher management levels, the gap grew again, reaching 5.8 percent for deputy department head and 9.7 percent for department chief.
The Human Rights Commission says that the gap is due to the fact that the percentage of women in higher positions is lower than men.
Although this may not necessarily reflect a glass ceiling, the commission noted that it does reflect the reality that women’s salaries at upper management levels are lower than those of their male counterparts.
An expert on the issue says that the salary gap between genders is usually not resolved, even after women gain work experience or are promoted.
The study showed that all conditions being equal, women were much less recognized for their past work experience than men.
This means that women are bound to be disadvantaged when taking up jobs requiring former experience, and some experts say that blind hiring practices that do not identify the gender of job applicants should be implemented to tackle this problem.
H. S. Seo (hsseo@koreabizwire.com)
