Corporate Korea’s Gender Gap Revealed

Most companies have a low percentage of women in managerial positions, according to a Dong-A Ilbo study of workforce structures by position at 20 major corporations, including Samsung, Hyundai-Kia, LG, SK, and 20 major IT companies.

Among the 20 major companies and affiliate companies analyzed, only 96,305, or 18.6 percent, of 518,725 managers were women.

Of regular “employee” rank holders, women made up the highest percentage, with 78,487 out of 272,807 (28.8 percent).

It seems that the higher the position, the fewer the number of women holding it.

Out of 113,297 assistant managers, 12,811 (11.3 percent) were female, while out of 77,717 managers, only 4,348 (5.6 percent) were female. The percentage dropped to 1.4 percent at the deputy general manager level (473 females out of 33,868).

The numbers dropped even further at the executive and general manager levels.

Out of the 16,147 general managers, only 143 (0.9 percent) were women. There were also only 43 (0.9 percent) women out of 4,889 executives, positions considered to be the “flower of the company.” If the 10 female executives who were also a part of ownership families are excluded, there were only 33 female executives.

This is the first time the number of women in major companies has been revealed in such detail.

The situation was not very different in mid-sized IT companies. Out of their 10,120 employees, only 2,048, or 20.2 percent, were female.

By position, the proportion of female employees were: ordinary employees, 33.7 percent; assistant managers, 22.4 percent; managers, 12.4 percent; deputy general managers, 4.7 percent; general managers, 3.8 percent; and executives, 5.3 percent.

A Samsung human resources support team official said, “This can be attributed to the fact that women quit more often than men once they get older, and also, up until the 1990s, female college graduates were not selected through the open recruitment process. The percentage of female managers will increase greatly over the next 10 years.”

Jeong-Hun Park sunshade@donga.com