 The gender wage gap: evidence from South KoreaLee Kyeongah ()
IZA Journal of Labor Economics, 2022, vol. 11, issue 1, 36 Abstract: Using microdata between 1998 and 2020, this study provides potential explanations for the gender wage gap in South Korea, which continues to be the largest among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Although improvement in females’ relative measured labor market characteristics plays an important role in the reduction of the gender wage gap, these characteristics cannot explain a large part of the gap, and wage convergence between full-time male and female workers has slowed over the period. Indeed, the unexplained gender wage gap has become larger than the explained gender wage gap. This is confirmed when a decomposition of the gender wage gap is performed across the wage distribution. This study provides evidence of the existence of a glass ceiling. In addition, this study shows that, in South Korea, where conservative gender-related norms still persist, the effects of marriage and childbirth can help to account for a dramatic increase in the gender wage gap for female workers in their 30s and 40s. Keywords: unexplained gender wage gap; glass ceiling; impacts of marriage and children (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vrs:izajle:v:11:y:2022:i:1:p:36:n:2 DOI: 10.2478/izajole-2022-0005 Access Statistics for this article IZA Journal of Labor Economics is currently edited by Pierre Cahuc and Pamela Qendrai More articles in IZA Journal of Labor Economics from Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA) |
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