Wage gap between men and women > 영어토론방

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The salary gap between male and female employees of Korea’s large companies widened over the past five years despite more women entering the workforce.

Men who work at the top 50 listed firms earned an average of 1.62 million won ($1,570) more per month in the first six months to June this year than women, according to corporate data submitted to the Financial Supervisory Service. The wage gap was up 52 percent compared to a monthly average of 1.06 million won recorded in the first half of 2000.

Companies paid male workers a monthly average of 4.25 million won during the January to June period, up from an average of 2.8 million won five years ago. Female workers made 2.62 million won per month, up from 1.74 million won over the same period.

Analysts said that it is difficult for female workers to get promoted in the Korean corporate culture where discrimination against women still exists even though more women have entered the labor market. They said a large number of women are engaged in low- paying manufacturing and service-oriented jobs. In particular, women in construction, electronics and automobile businesses received substantially lower wages than their male counterparts.

For instance, male workers at Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest memory chipmaker, earned an average of 4.5 million won a month in the first half, 1.35 million won more than that of female employees. The figure was up 260 percent from five years ago when the wage gap between men and women stood at 375,000 won. POSCO, the world’s fifth largest steel maker, also saw the wage difference between its male and female employees widened by 106 percent over the past five years as men received 1.1 million won more compared to 530,000 won in 2000.

But some companies narrowed the salary gap between men and women. Hynix Semiconductor, the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker, closed the gap by 22.2 percent to 700,000 won per month in the first six months of the year from 900,000 won five years ago. KCC Corp., Korea’s leading construction materials producer, also saw the wage gap between male and female employees narrow to 1.08 million won per month this year, down from 1.45 million won in 2000.

The discrepancy in wages between men and women is attributed to the fact that fewer female workers are being promoted to positions in upper management, analysts said. "Women tend to receive lower wages compared to men as many female workers quit their jobs when they get married. Even if they decide to stay with the firm for a long time, they still face disadvantages in promotion and job priority due to the male dominant corporate structure" said Yang In-sook, research fellow at Korea Women’s Development Institute.

Yang said that female workers face even tougher circumstances in the future as more companies adopt a performance-based payment system, because women are also burdened with taking care of family matters.

"The government and companies should make the utmost effort to help women realize career advancement by providing more female-friendly education programs and by establishing more daycare facilities for married women" she stressed.


Question

1. Did you know about wage gap between men and women? If you do or not, how do you feel when you see this reference?

2. Why do you think companies discriminate their employee's wage?

3. Do you agree or disagree make a discrimination of wage between men and women?

4. What do you think should change to resolve this problem?


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