"Difficulties of females in getting a job and keeping it"

by Shim Suk-young

When I went to high school, my male teacher used to say, "Why are you studying? Getting married to a capable man, raring children and doing housework for family are women's happiness." When he said this, we got angry and felt his prejudice against females. Not only in school but also in the Korean society over, we experience this prejudice. In Korea, women are treated unfairly when they try to get a job and on the job because of prejudice against them caused by Confucianism.

In Korea, there is widespread prejudice against females caused by Confucianism, and it prevents females' opportunity to participate in society. In the year 2001, the ratio of Korean women's participation in the economy was 48.8%, and this figure was the lowest grade among the member nations in OECD. This figure shows us that it's difficult for women to have their own job because of some reasons, mainly prejudice against females. There is a saying 'a man is the sky, a woman is the ground.' It means that women have to be obedient to men and it is the representative thought of Confucianism, which is the idea in the Cho-sun dynasty. In the Cho-sun dynasty, females weren't allowed to be educated, they should obey their husband so it was an unthinkable thing that women work outside as men. And now these thoughts, although our society has been changed a lot, still remain and make people form prejudice against female. This prejudice, for instance, 'females are weak', 'females show their abilities in the position of a supporter better than other position', 'female's role is confined to home' and so on, has influenced women when they find a job and work in their workplace although there are not reasonable reasons for this prejudice.

The prejudice against female causes discrimination when they try to get a job. According to a survey report of Korea Women's Trade Union, 38.6% of female students who were polled said they had experienced discrimination in recruitment. There are some examples of the discrimination, which are found on web site of Ministry of Gender Equality. First of all, hiring requirements are different between men and women. In men's case, major, development possibility, and personal ability are important hiring requirements. In contrast to men's, appearance, impression, and character are women's important hiring requirements. Also in job interviews, women are asked some discriminatory questions compared with men. Interviewers ask men questions related to a business but in females' case, they ask questions not related to a business more than the questions related to a business. For example, "Are you married?", "Can you accept that a man, who has the same qualification as you, promote faster than you?" and so on. Moreover there are few female interviewers, female interviewees are at a disadvantage compared with male interviewees because of male interviewers' prejudice. The prejudice is that males learn business and adapt themselves to new circumstance faster than female. It's prohibited by law that employers discriminate females only for the reason that they are females, however, lots of companies still have shunned recruiting females tacitly and women have difficulties for getting a job.

Females are treated unfairly not only in recruitment but in the workplace. After getting a job, women face another discrimination in promotion and pay. In Korea, female managers' rate at all organizations which have more than 10 employees is only 4.3%. The people who give promotion are mostly men and lots of men think that it's a disagreeable thing that men work under female superiors. Therefore organizations dodge to hire female managers, female's opportunity to be promoted is limited. Not only in promotion but also in pay, women are treated unfairly - many female employees' pay is lower than men's pay. It is 64.8% of men's pay in 2000, Korea Development Institute (KDI) announced. In addition, there are not rational reasons why women are low paid. According to a report of KDI, 57% of women are low paid just because they are female. Such the discrimination caused by prejudice makes it difficult for women to keep their jobs, so still in Korea, the ratio of women's participation in society is low.

Although Korean society has changed in lots of fields, there are so many barriers that prevent females from participating in society.. The discrimination in recruitment, promotion and pay caused by prejudice against females makes it difficult for them to get a job and keep it. For this reason, the rate of female's participation in economy is low, and it won't grow as long as discrimination remains.