University Graduates: One Woman Hired for every Four Men

[strawberry-efeu.livejournal.com]

Women – not men – were fired in droves at the start of the 2008 financial crisis. But was that as outrageously sexist as it sounds?

After all, they were the bulk of irregular workers back then, when Korea had a greater percentage of them than any other OECD country. Insecurity was a given, which is why the status and rights of irregular workers was a big political issue years before the crisis.

KoreanLabor

Also, bear in mind that most single people live with their parents until marriage. So, however perverse, there was a certain logic in the government concentrating on securing jobs for (overwhelmingly male) heads of households, as husbands would provide for their wives, and fathers for their daughters.

In such strained circumstances, it sounds almost churlish of women to complain.

But although women weren’t irregular workers when the Asian Financial Crisis hit a decade earlier, yet again they were the first to be fired (ironically, Korea actually had the least irregular workers in the OECD then). Also, it was only this newly emerging irregular work that was made available to women once the Korean economy began to recover, and accordingly the Korean female workforce participation rate has stagnated at the lowest or near-lowest rate in the OECD ever since.

A simplistic account of Korean employment trends over the last fifteen years or so? Perhaps. But was it more systematic sexism than economic logic involved? Almost certainly. How else to explain why three years after the latest crisis, Korean companies are hiring roughly only one female graduate for every four male ones, as the following MK article makes clear?

“Sexual discrimination in hiring” [causes] female university students’ tears
31 October 2011

The goal of one Ms. Lee (25), member of the graduating class of an upper-mid-level Seoul university, is to get a job in finance. Starting last July, she did a two-month internship at a branch of a securities company, where her superb evaluations caused her to be considered the top choice to be given a permanent position. However, she was unsuccessful.

A few days later, Ms. Lee even heard these shocking words from her superior: “I’m sorry, but we got instructions from headquarters to only hire men, so there’s nothing I could do.” Ms. Lee revealed, “Though at each branch, the ranked interns’ marks were much higher for women, at that time there was not a single woman among those hired as permanent employees. I think my dream was crushed for no other reason than that I’m a woman, and it’s not fair.”

Amid severe unemployment, female university students at the threshold of getting jobs are being frustrated and shedding tears. Through women’s increased high levels of education, “female wind” is blowing [female influence is making an impact] everywhere, but it has been confirmed that, in the job market, sexual discrimination in favor of male applicants is serious.

On Oct. 31, the results of an investigation by the Maeil Kyungjae newspaper into the gender ratios of new university graduates hired by 10 major domestic companies last year found that women made up 1 or 2 of every 10 hires. They averaged the percentages of new female employees and found it was 18.5%, not even 20%.



Broken down by company, Lotte Group was the highest at 27.5%, LG and SK were at 20%, GS was at 18%, and Hanhwa was at 17.1%. Hyundai Kia Motors was in the high teens, and Hyundai Heavy Industries had the lowest percentage of women among the recent university graduates they hired, at 9.7%.

Female college students looking for employment often appear in the corporate image advertisements of Doosan Group, which is gaining popularity among current university students, but it has become known that the ratio of female new employees at this company, at 18.8%, is very low. A Doosan official said, “The nature of this business is [requires] an overwhelmingly high percentage of men and so a pretty low ratio of women.” Hanjin limited the range [of information] made public to some subsidiaries like Korean Air, and Samsung refused to release any information.

According to the National Statistical Office, the number of female university graduates last year, at 271,773, outstripped that of male graduates (268,223) for the first time in 10 years. However, the number of female graduates who were unemployed was 142,000, the highest on record.

In the end, it is being noted that there is a lack of arrangements for institutional groundwork from which businesses can actively hire talented women. Experts have emphasized that businesses need to take notice of strengths that only women possess, like delicacy, softness, thoughtfulness, and communicative ability and so change their perceptions at the level of corporate strategy. Kim Wang-bae, a sociology professor at Yonsei University, explained, “As we become a post-industrial society, ‘software society,’ which represents delicacy, is becoming emphasized over ‘hardware society,’ which symbolizes masculinity. Because businesses that excel at capturing consumer demands survive, it is necessary to maximize the strengths of female personnel.” (end)

fivijis143

As always, news like this strongly challenges narratives of a glorious future of Korean grrrl power that pervade the English language media about Korea (see here for a discussion of the above video). But I confess I was still shocked at the figures above, although perhaps I shouldn’t have been when even an implicit advocate of women’s rights like Kim Wang-bae above subscribes to the same delicate women / tough men worldview that Doosan Group does!

source: naver, the grand narrative, KoreanLabor, fivijis143

Comments

[kendalove.livejournal.com]

i think it's not that women are less efficient than man but the fact that when getting married and having baby, women are the one that pregnant, so we need a couple of month off work (maybe one year). And when we do, they need someone else to replace us temporally. While if they hire a man for the job, no pregnancy vacation.

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

I don't think either that women are less efficient.
I'm just saying that most culture raised their children in the belief that women are less efficient when it comes to work.
And the examples you're using are the reason why I somehow understand the situation, at least from a employer pov. It is true that pregnancy could come in conflict with work.
However not all women want to have children and thus the situation is unfair to them too.
I somehow get the feeling that because women are meant to give life, which is supposed to be the most wonderful thing, they are punished when it comes to work.
It's life I guess but it still bugging me.

[uledy.livejournal.com]

Most companies in the US now allow for maternity leave for men as well. It's not the average 3 months that women receive, but it's still significant. I think it's great that the country is finally recognizing paternal rights and the man's role within the "traditional" family.