The Situation of Women Workers in Korea
kwwa  2002-10-28 14:27:18, 조회 : 437


The Situation of Women  Workers in Korea

                                                                        Maria Rhie  

Since the strict conditions of the International  Monetary Fund’s economic bailout package went into effect  last December 1997, approximately two to three million workers in S. Korea have lost their jobs. This figure represents a drastic six-fold increase in less than eight months.  For a nation with no exising social welfare system and with a domestic economy that relies heavily on foreign investment, drasticalling rising unemployment translates into extreme financial insecurity, intensified social problems and tremendous emotional dislocation across the entire nation.  For the most vulnerable sectors of the population such as women workers, particularly single mothers and women who operate as the head of their of  households, the situation is especially grave.

Women workers are disproportionately affected by economic restructuring strategies and privatization policies.  Due to severe discrimination along gender, age and marital status lines, women over forty years old, mothers, and pregnant women are dismissed immediately.  These groups of women have almost no future possibilities for wage labor employment and subsequently, drop out of the wage labor market as discouraged women workers. The only available job opportunities for other groups of women workers represent highly insecure forms of temporary employment. In Korea, 45 % of the employed pupulation are temporary workers.
As many as 65% of women workers work in very small companies which are not protected by the labor Standard Law.  Women workers are the first targets for illegal retrenchment and lay-offs, especially in periods of economic crisis. In addition, regular women workers’ status is reduced to temporary, part-time, daily and dispatched workers. This is largely due to patriarchy in Korea society. Women are viewed as secondary earners to men who are seen as breadwinners.

According to Employment Trends of May 1999, by  the National Statistical Office, the involvement rate of women in Economic activities decreased 0.6% in comparison with the first quarter of 1998, and the female population not involved in economic activities increased by about 220,000(2.2%). As of May 1999, female unemployment has increased to 559,000, which covers 32.8% of the total unemployed  population, and the unemployment rate of women has increased by 5.1% more than the rate of male unemployment.
As of May 1999, two of three employed women are temporary workers.  Only 30.8% of women workers are  regular workers while 61.4% of men are regular workers.

And only 5% of women workers belong to the union. The total rate of organized workers is 47% while that for women is only 36%.  Compared to  in April 1997, the decrease of union members as a whole is 32%, but the decrease of women union members is 47%.  The rate of union involvement by temporary female workers is 23.8%.  There are companies in which all female workers are temporary, and companies with more than 50% of temporary female workers are commonplace.  In large enterprises, the problem is more serious.  

Women  workers Employment  situation                   (Unit: persons)

(This table is the summarize of a research conducted by KWWAU, illustrates the unstable situation of women workers)

Employment of Irregular Women Workers

In September 1998, the economically active population was 21,622 in Korea .  This  represented 61.2% of the population of 35,338 above the age of 15. Compared to 62.5% in 1997, this shows a 1.0% decline. Male participation in the labor market decreased slightly in 1998.  
According to below table, the number of wage workers of 12,101,000 dropped by 1,127,000 in September 1998, compared to 13,228,000 in 1997.  The number of wage workers  decreased amongst the economically active population, but the number of unpaid family workers amongst non-waged workers increased. Additionally, regular workers decreased markedly amongst wage workers in the current economic turmoil, but the number of irregular workers such as temporary and day workers increased.
Table wage workers by forms of employment (unit; thousand, %)


Although the total population of male wage workers declined  in September 1998, the figure of 63.4% for regular male workers remained unchanged in comparison to  1997. However, in the case of women, regular workers  composed only 32.9%, temporary workers and day workers 46.6% and 20.5% respectively.  This implies that about 67.1% of wage female workers are irregular, whose employment is vulnerable.

Under the current economic crisis, many companies have discriminated against women and forced regular female workers to become irregular workers under the pretense of necessary restructuring.  In particular, married women have been illegally targeted for irregular employment; this has rendered women more marginalized and vulnerable .  In the process of restructuring, a variety of unfair labor practices have appeared with the transfer of female regular workers into irregular ones: regular workers are daid-off or vuluntary retied and then re-employed with temporary contracts. Women are also targets of this practice.  Regular women workers are dismissed and/or victims of the closure of their women-concentrated departments  and then re-employed through temporary employment agencies.  In addition, companies usually terminate female workers who attempt to resist these unfair labor practices. Since companies target female workers first and concentrate  on women for unfair  labor practices, the irregular employment of women workers has rapidly increased.
(Research conducted by the Ministry of Labor shows that about 80% of part-time workers are women.  Women among the total number of part-timers constituted 77% in 1993, 78.7% in 1994, and 78.3% in 1995)
Workers  who keep their jobs, they  have difficulties  from  the long working hours and  labor intensification, after revising labor laws. The law allowing workers to work for 44 hours a week( principle 44 hours a week) and 56 a month without  paying overtime payment.( about 12 hours a month  the workers can work without OT payment). And after pass a law on Dispatch work( about 21 work categories) many workers employed under  the dispatch work.

Voluntary retirement, prior dismissal of temporary workers
In the current economic crisis women workers have become marginalized in the labor market. In 1998, male workers accounted for 64.5% of regular workers, but women workers constituted 34.%.  The rate of temporary women workers increase from62.2% in 1997 to 66.1% in 1998.  This shows that women workers are forced and or voluntary retire from their jobs and they re-enter the labor market as temporary workers after the marriage, pregnancy and child-caring.  This also means that women are forced to work as temporary workers under the excuse of the current economic crisis.
With the structure ajustment  program , specially in financial companies the first workers dismissed were women. H Insurance Company launched a voluntary retirement scheme in April 1998 targeting those who had worked longer than seven years. 75% of the workers who volunteered to retire were women, and four out of then were married women. The key reason for this is that the company tried to encourage female workers to retire.  In the process , the branch manger encouraged female workers to retire and tried to create a difficult atmosphere for them.

Unfair dismissal, and pressure to transfer to a temporary working position
AT the first quarter of this year of KWWAU  Equal Rights Counseling Center , the proportion of callers anxious about  employment instability increased to 85.3% among the counseling cases.  Women are still targeted primarily for dismissal in a sexually discriminative manner, especially when they work at the same place as their husband.  In  public enterprises, the notification of dismissal  is given without following proper procedure or giving adequate explanation. In small companies, the workers are dismissed for unreasonable causes.  The cases related to workers’ maternity have increased: pressure to resign on pregnancy, non-payment of wages during maternity leave attempts made by employees to induce resignation after maternity leave, etc. Some companies begin to pressurize the pregnant worker immediately upon her notification of pregnancy.  Through the counseling service, we can confirm the disadvantageous situation facing women workers.  Under the banner of the IMF Economic crisis, women are discouraged from taking monthly menstrual leave or maternity leave.  
In public enterprises, large enterprises, small and medium enter-prises, and other private companies, the women workers are transferred to temporary working positions.  Even in public enter prises, female
Technicians are  transferred to temporary positions, or are forced to resign so the companies can recruit new workers on a temporary contract.  The circumstances surrounding unpaid wages very greatly.  In small companies, there are many cases of wages unpaid without any explanation.

The situation of Unemployed Women
According to our Action Center for Unemployed Women,  total number of cases , women come to 1,649. 64.9% of callers were over 35 years old, 75.3% were high school graduates, and 81.9% were married women.  It shows that those with a background of low education, the middle-aged, and married women still face the greatest difficulties in getting jobs.  40.3% of single women were fired recently and 33.5% of these women have not worked for some time.  In the case of married women, 46.5% are trying to find work and 28.8% of them have recently been sacked.  68.4% of the them have registered as job seekers.  
According to the principle of the public labor arrangement, priority should be given to female family heads.  The actual state of affairs does not allow women who are financially responsible for their family to have a greater chance of getting work.  The public labor arrangement limits the age of beneficiaries.  Those older than 60  years old have no chance of getting a job. Many of them have to pay monthly rent and the subsidy for living costs is much less than they need.  The vocational training courses are too short to enable them to get the necessary qualifications to get jobs.   In fact many of them could not get a job even after attending vocational training courses.


Resisting to the problems

But Under the worsening situation of  employment, women workers have constantly struggled, sometimes in a group and sometimes alone.  Our campaigns were concluded with jobs being restored.  The women researcher in the tourism center brought a civil suit against their sexually discriminative dismissal.  The eight brave women in the Masan Free Trade Zone won their jobs back through five months of struggle.  The women workers of Dae Woo Construction won in court against sexually discriminative dismissal.  The caddies of Golf Club also struggled against the announcement of dismissal given to the caddies over 40 years old, and they all returned to work.  The married women who resigned upon their weddings due to having signed an oath to retire upon marriage, brought a civil suit through the central labor committee case handling, and they won in court.  Institute discontinued its policy of prior dismissal of women workers owing to the head quarters of workers unions.  These cases have been greatly encouraging for women workers.  In addition, some companies have transferred temporary workers to regular contracts or have encouraged their temporary workers to join their workers union.
women workers are heads of their families, they face extremely difficult situations. Many women workers in unorganized small companies are being laid-off and they have not received their backwages, since many of these women workers are heads of families, they face extremely difficult situations. Therefore, Action center for women’s Unemployment were established in june last year. In order to publicize the seriousness in women’s unemployment and to encourage the government to make pro-active policies for women workers. These Action Center for women’s unemployment provide practical assistance to women workers, through a variety of programmes such as job counseling information provision, training, surveying activities and medical assistance.  Organizing rallies in every month in front of the headquarter of the ruling party and National Assembly  for women workers’ job security and demanding the government to establish women’s unemployment prevention etc.








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