Gender gap closing in Korean job market

Korean women in their 20s are almost as equally employed as their male counterparts, and the gender gap in that age group will soon disappear, a government report said Thursday.
According to a report by the National Statistical Office, the employment rate of women in their 20s steadily increased to 59.7 percent in the second quarter this year, from 54.9 percent in 2000.
In contrast, the employment rate of men in their 20s declined to 60.7 percent in the second quarter from 66 percent in 2000.
The gender gap in the rate of employment in the age group has narrowed to 1 percentage point in the second quarter from 11.1 percentage points in 2000.
If current trends persist, more women in their 20s will be employed than their male counterparts in several years, the report said.
The NSO attributed the increase in young women's employment rate to the fact that more Korean women now focus more on jobs than marriage, and the recent trend for young couples desire to have two incomes.
Moreover, government and corporate efforts to follow gender equality principles have helped expand the job market for women, it said. However, the gender gap in the employment rate in all age groups has not changed much in the past six years.
The employment rate in 2000 was 70.7 percent for men and 47 percent for women, showing a 23.7 percent gap. The gender gap only slightly shrank to 22.5 percent last year with 71.3 percent of men employed, to 48.8 percent of women.
Compared to Europe, Korea's gender gap figures are still grim.
According to Eurostat, the gender gap in employment across the 27 European Union countries stood at 14.8 percent on average in 2005, with 3.8 percent in Finland, 4 percent in Sweden and 24 percent in Spain.