than that of women with high school education, and the time of their return is also different. Women
with university education return to work in their late 30s or early 40s, quicker than women with high
school education, and the employment rates after the age 40 are similar among the two groups.
However, the employment rate in their 20s and 30s of women with university degrees are lower than
that of those with high school degrees.
15.
The ‘Economic Survey of Korea’ (2016) published by OECD diagnosed the issues of
women’s employment and made recommendations as below.
a. “The labor market is segmented into regular and non-regular workers, who earn only 62% as
much per hour as regular workers, boosting inequality and relative poverty. Women account
for a disproportionate share of non-regular workers, thus discouraging female employment.”
(p.12)
b. “The employment of women is constrained by the limited take-up of maternity and parental
leave and the availability of high-quality childcare. Career breaks for women widen the
gender wage gap, which is the largest in the OECD.” Thus, it’s recommended to “Increase
the take-up of maternity and parental leave systems by enforcing compliance and raising the
benefit level for parental leave. Enhance childcare quality by making accreditation mandatory
and strengthening competition.” (p.13)
16.
The analysis of the rates of irregular workers as an indicator to judge the quality of work in
the society at large shows that the gender gap among irregular workers has narrowed since 2011, but
widened again in the first half of 2016 to the rates similar to those of 2012.
<Table 3> Rates of irregular workers by gender
(Unit: % p)
2016.6.
Gender/Year
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Total
34.2
33.3
32.6
32.4
32.5
32.8
Men
27.8
27.2
26.5
26.6
26.5
26.4
Women
42.8
41.5
40.6
39.9
40.2
41.0
Gender gap
15.0
14.3
14.1
13.3
13.7
14.6
(Source: Additional Survey by Work Types,
Economically Active Population Survey, National Statistical Office, August 2016)
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