On International Women’s Day, Korean women face daunting challenges

Posted on : 2013-03-08 12:37 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Korean women still earn less than men, which is just one serious problem the female president has no plans to fix
 International Women’s Day calling for the regularization of their jobs
International Women’s Day calling for the regularization of their jobs

By Lee You-jin, staff reporter

March 8 is International Women’s Day. The day traces its origins to one day in 1908, when 15,000 female workers in the US gathered to demand higher wages, better working conditions, freedom to form unions, and the right to vote. It is an especially meaningful day this year, as South Korea has its first-ever female president, but women’s rights groups are struggling more than ever.

“The situation for South Korean women today isn’t much different from what is was for American women 105 years ago,” said Seong Hwa, deputy general manager of the Korea Confederation of Trade Union (KCTU) women’s committee, on the eve of International Women’s Day on Mar. 6.

Indeed, the demands of the women’s rights groups that gathered in downtown Seoul’s Gwanghwamun area on the morning of Mar. 7 were more or less the same as those of the American workers in 1908. The groups, which included Korean Women’s Association United (KWAU) and Korean Womenlink, were calling for a solution to the problem of female temporary workers in the public sector, full social insurance support for temporary workers (an election-time pledge), the elimination of the gender gap in wages, guaranteed childbirth and child-care leave for female temporary workers, improved long-term labor practices, and a 30% increase in public and state day-care facilities. It was an incongruous set of demands for a year when the country greets its first female president.

During an International Women’s Day press conference on the morning of Mar. 4, the KCTU women’s committee and other workers’ groups blasted Park for making “false promises” during the election. The group Network for Glocal Activism staged a relay demonstration from Mar. 5-7 to demand that all women’s labor be recognized.

The numbers bear out the harsh employment situation women face. A February report by the OECD found a gender gap of 39% in pay as of 2010, meaning that women earned US$61 for every US$100 earned by men. It was the highest rate among the organization’s 33 countries. The hiring gap was also the highest in the group, at 29 percentage points. Another survey on types of employment that was done by Statistics Korea as part of a working population census in August 2011 found that women accounted for 3.2 million, or 53.4%, of the country’s 5,995,000 temporary workers.

“The number of female temporary workers began outpacing the number of male ones in 2009, and there’s a very strong chance they will bear the brunt of labor flexibility policies,” said Kim Yeong-ok, a senior researcher at the Korean Women‘s Development Institute.

But a Korean Womenlink analysis of the governance tasks for Park’s presidential transition committee on February 28 found the new president to have backtracked substantially on her announced policies for women’s issues. Temporary workers earning less than 1.3 million won (US$1,190) a month will receive support for just half their national pension and employment insurance premiums, rather than 100% as originally promised. No concrete plans at all were given for the issue of temporary employment in the public sector. Park also said she would increase the number of female administrators in the government, but just two of the 18 people named to her new Cabinet are women. She branded sexual violence as of the “four evils” to be eliminated, but failed to include any policies for addressing it.

“All throughout the election campaign she presented herself as the ‘prepared female president,’ yet she only used the word ‘woman’ once in her inaugural address,” said Kwon Mi-hyeok, director KWAU. “She needs to come out with concrete and vigorous plans for dealing with the current pressing issues, including regularizing female public sector temporary employees.”

 

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