Women Employment
It has been found that South Korea's female employment rate was still below the OECD average. This means that the rate had not risen very much due to a “career interrupted women” phenomenon in which women’s careers were interrupted due to marriages, childbirth and childcare.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on April 15, South Korea’s female employment rate (people between the ages of 15 and 64) was 66.1 percent, up 0.4 percentage point from the previous year. By gender, males swelled 0.1 percentage point to 75.8 percent, while females 0.5 percentage point to 56.2 percent year on year.
However, South Korea’s male employment rate outweighed the OECD average (74.7%), but South Korea’s female employment rate was 3 percentage points lower than the OECD average of 59.3%. Among the OECD member countries, South Korean women's employment rate was the seventh lowest among the OECD member countries, following that of Turkey (31.2 percent), that of Greece (43.3 percent), that of Mexico (45.1 percent), that of Italy (48.1 percent), that of Chile (52 percent) and that of Spain (54.3%).
South Korea's female employment rate was steadily rising, but it was still lower than those of other OECD member countries. This fact was blamed on a job market situation, which made it difficult for women to get jobs after childbirth and childcare. According to the Statistics Korea, among 9.289 million married women in 2015 aged 20 years or older who had work experience before marriage, 6.6 million (44%) were women with career disruptions due to marriages and childcare. Marriage (58.5%) was the most common cause of career disruptions, followed by pregnancy and childbirth (28.4%) and parenting (7.2%).