In N. Korea, men call the shots, women make the money
SEOUL—North Korea is a militarized, male-dominated society, but it is the women who are making the money as the insular nation allows an unofficial market-based economy to take shape.
Women earn more than 70 percent of household income in North Korea, mainly as traders in the informal markets that have proliferated in recent years, research by the South Korean government-run Korea Institute for National Unification found.
That is despite women making up only about half of the 12 million economically active North Koreans, experts say. Most men are stuck in state jobs that pay little or serve in the Army.
“We North Koreans say men are fighting on the socialism front but women are fighting in the battle of life,” said a 26-year-old surnamed Jung who fled to South Korea in 2012.
With state rations a distant memory, North Koreans have increasingly turned to the informal economy to support their families, and women are playing a disproportionately active role.
Still, men dominate North Korea’s military and government, which command absolute power in the nation of 24.5 million. The only women seen in the upper echelons of Pyongyang’s current elite are leader Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, and his aunt Kim Kyong-hui—sister of late leader Kim Jong-il.
With women holding more economic power, more of them are also seeking divorce, according to experts. The main reason cited is husband’s financial incompetence, according to a recent survey of 103 defectors by the Seoul-based Korean Bar Association.