Korea Shows Largest Wage Gap between Male and Female Workers in OECD

According to a recent report, Korea’s gender-based wage difference is greater than in any other OECD member countries.

The National Assembly Research Service published a report on the issue on June 9, referring to 2010 OECD data. According to the report, the ratio of Korean female workers’ wages to their male counterparts’ was 61 percent on a full-time basis. Female workers in Japan, Finland, Netherlands, and Turkey were found to earn 28.7 percent, 21.2 percent, 20.5 percent, and 20.1 percent less wages than male workers in their respective countries.

More recently, the salary difference was 31.8 percent according to a Ministry of Employment and Labor survey conducted last year. The discrepancy was still wide although somewhat reduced in three years.

Korea showed a wide salary gap in terms of the number of years of service, too. As of last year, the average monthly salary of those who worked for over 10 years was approximately twice that of those with less than one year of experience. At the same time, the average monthly wage of college graduates and those with a higher diploma was 1.7 to 1.9 times that of those with middle school or lower education.