Korean Women Trapped By the "Glass Wall"

[uledy.livejournal.com]

Kim Jae-Won of The Korea Times writes:

Women hold only a combined 12 seats on the boards of the country’s 100-biggest companies, according to official data.

This confirms that all the speechifying about progressing equality between the sexes and improving corporate prospects for women has so far been a hollow promise.

The 12 women account for just 1.5 percent of the 801 seats occupied by men, according to records provided by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) and Statistics Korea.

There are only a precious few businesswomen who have made it to the upper-reaches of the corporate totem pole. And many of those women owe it to being the granddaughter of corporate chairmen or their daughter-in-laws.

And the holders of the 12 seats are 11 women as Hyundai Group Chairman Hyun Jeong-eun, widow of former Hyundai Chairman Chung Mong-hun, chairs the boardrooms of both Hyundai Merchant Marine and Hyundai Securities.

Lotte Shopping’s Shin Youngja and Orion’s Lee Hwa-kyung are the other female boardroom occupants who are members of their group’s founding families.

Shin is the daughter of Lotte Group Chairman Shin Kyuk-ho and Lee is the daughter of Orion founder Lee Yang-gu.

The eight other female board members are university professors and civic rights advocates involved in their companies as outside directors.

Korea’s female board member ratio is far below European counterparts. Women there made up 11.7 percent of boards in the region’s top 300 companies in 2010, up from 9.7 percent in 2008, according to the European Professional Women’s Network.

Norway remained at the top of the table with 37.9 percent of women on its firms’ boards thanks to the nation’s quota legislation, which enforces the country’s state-owned and publicly- held companies to fill more than 40 percent of non-executive board seats with women.

Experts say that Korea’s problem is more like a “glass wall” rather than a “glass ceiling” as female workers are initially excluded from important departments.

“The problem is that female employees are not given the chance to work in key areas while their male counterparts are. As they have no experience their chances for promotion are slim compared to male staff,” said Bae Eun-gyeong, a professor at the Institute for Gender Research at Seoul National University.

Market watchers said such a small number of senior female executives in Korea is a result of a lot of women being denied the chance to expand or continue their careers after having children.

Every Korean female employee is entitled to three months of paid maternity leave by law, but experts say it is not sufficient.

The lack of quality childcare centers also weighs down on female workers’ career development, observers say.

Due to the negative conditions, the average working years for female employees at the tallied companies came in at 7.4 years, compared with 11.7 years for men.

Government figures confirm that women in their 30s are dropping out of the workplace at an alarming rate and their lack of freedom in setting a work-life balance has been identified as the main culprit. The pay gap between men and women also remains wide, so when couples decide they can’t afford to pay for childcare it’s normally the wife who stays at home.


Source: The Korea Times

Erm, can we get a women's issues and/or sexism tag??? also, a general "descrimination" and/or "prejudice" one too??

Comments

[pepper.livejournal.com]

Not surprised... like, at all.

[abe-abe.livejournal.com]

Not surprising but still very disappointing.

[a-cheshire-grin.livejournal.com]

+1...sadly

[deerlike.livejournal.com]

Unsurprised that the Scandinavian countries have the best track record when it comes to gender equality. :)

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

I think this was already posted a few months ago

Never mind it's just a really similar one (look likes the koreatimes run out of article)

[mjspice.livejournal.com]

What the heck???

[soleil-kitty.livejournal.com]

ungh, germany too :( so sad.

[goshipgurl.livejournal.com]

ikr i thought our government wanted to change this

[regnsky.livejournal.com]

Norway may top this list but I still feel like we have long way to go

[scarletfbl.livejournal.com]

How is that even possible, with so mane S. Korean women going to college, nowadays? Are they still mostly going for their Mrs. Degree, or what?

[anconeous.livejournal.com]

Many go to college and earn degrees, but a majority end up being housewives. Sometimes their degrees and where they got them just end up being nice little extras in how to impress future in-laws.

[45s.livejournal.com]

basically. it's really frustrating because it's like their entire lives are some prep game to find a husband. same shit, different name :-/

[sisterjune.livejournal.com]

yeah its so sad. women work hard to get a good degree at a nice school and then they never get to do anything with it :(

[45s.livejournal.com]

you are posting all the best articles this morn and i'm glad to wake up to these!

[izabera.livejournal.com]

The nepotism is just as appalling as the sexism tbh
No-one should become a director in a company just because they happen to be someone's child or grandchild.

[annhh.livejournal.com]

+1

jfc really.