Differences in the process of earnings determination and inequality between women and men in South Korea.

Women have increasingly participated in the labor force in South Korea over the past thirty years. Making up 30% of the labor force in 1960, they grew to comprise 47% by 1990. The economic status of female workers has also improved relative to men; the percentage of female wages to male wages increased from 44.1 in 1971 to 53.5 in 1990. Against this historical backdrop, the author examines the process of earnings determination of workers and assesses the explanatory power of human capital and sex segregation theory on earnings inequality between women and men in the South Korean labor market. This is done by analyzing the 1977-90 waves of the Occupational Wage Survey, a pooled cross-section and time series data set for all non-agricultural occupations. Two separate regressions for men and women are estimated using two-stage weighted least squares methods. It is found after analysis that education and tenure have positive effects on logged earnings. Employment in occupations with greater numbers of women tends to lower workers' earnings regardless of their sex, but women are penalized to a four times greater extent than men for working with other women in occupations. Sex segregation becomes insignificant in lowering women's earnings level when occupational groups are controlled. Finally, the inequality in earnings between genders decreased over the period 1977-90 during which women's earnings increased more than those of men.