South Korea targets more jobs for women
SEOUL — South Korea will adopt a name-and-shame policy, publicly identifying companies with low female employment levels, as President Park Geun Hye targets 1.65 million extra jobs for women.
Policy steps will include increased subsidies for parents on childcare leave and preferential treatment for “familyfriendly” companies seeking government contracts, six ministries said in a joint statement this week.
With an aging population threatening to undermine South Korea’s economic growth, Park, the nation’s first woman president, has pledged to lift the female employment rate to 61.9 per cent, from 53.5 per cent, before her term ends in 2018. Cho Yoon Sun, the minister for gender equality, is working with the family-run industrial groups called chaebol to try to end male-dominated employment practices.
“The male-dominated culture is not shifting fast enough and is a big obstacle to companies actually implementing such measures,” Lee Su Youn, head of the Korea Workingmom Institute research organization.
In interviews in Seoul last month, Park said that helping women balance family and work was among the “most critical” items on her agenda, while Cho said that her “biggest priority” was enabling women to work while raising children.
The government will encourage flexible working hours, enhance childcare programs, and improve training for mothers seeking to re-enter the workforce, the ministries of finance, gender equality, education, welfare, labour and administration, said the statement.
“With well-devised policy support at each stage of women’s life cycles, we will create a country where they don’t have to quit their jobs because of their babies,” the ministries said.
The government also plans to set up a database of 100,000 female talents by 2017 to help improve gender equality at senior levels in the public and private sectors, the ministries said.