[THE INVESTOR] The female employment rate in Korea edged up 0.4 percentage point last year, government data showed on June 28.

The employment rate of Korean women reached 49.9 percent in 2015, up from 49.5 percent a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

That of men, however, fell to 71.1 percent from 71.4 percent over the cited period.

As a result, the gap between men and women narrowed to 21.2 percentage points from 21.9 percentage points a year earlier. In 2000, the disparity was 23.7.

Women’s unemployment rate rose 0.1 percentage point to 3.6 percent last year, with that of men coming in at 3.7 percent.

But the data showed that their job quality remained low compared to their male counterparts as 40 percent of female workers are irregular workers, and 25.9 percent of male workers are part-timers.

In terms of salary, a woman worker is paid an average 1.78 million won (US$1,500) a month last year, which is equivalent to 62.8 percent of that of their male counterparts.

In the public sector, 43.8 percent of the government officials were female last year, sharply up from 31.5 percent in 2000, with nearly 50 percent of women passing the national civil servant examination.

But among high-ranking officials, only 9.7 percent are women, although it jumped more than four-fold from 2.1 percent tallied 15 years ago.

(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)