(image: Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Feb. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — Women working in the field of web-based platforms earn less than 80 percent of what men typically earn for similar work, a government report said Thursday.
The state-run Korea Employment Information Service conducted a survey of 1,023 web-based platform workers in September and October of last year, which showed that men were making an average of 1.69 million won, while women made an average of 1.33 million won per month.
The gender-based income gap stood at 21.3 percent.
Both male and female workers were struggling with having to do additional, non-paid work, particularly in the field of digital content production such as webtoons and web novels, where they reported lengthy working hours.
They were also at risk of forced termination of contracts.
Job positions in the platform industry were also highly selective of gender.
The Korea Labour and Society Institute conducted a survey of 650 regional platform workers in Seoul and 77 web-based platform workers, in which 96.5 percent of women worked in the field of housekeeping, followed by house cleaning (91.8 percent), and home tutoring and counseling (81 percent).
Only a small percentage of women worked in the field of chauffering services (9.3 percent), distribution services (6.2 percent), delivery work (3.8 percent), and quick service (2.1 percent).
Only a handful of the women-dominated jobs earned more income than other positions dominated by men.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
