Publication
The Korean Economic Forum
The Effects of the Female Ratio in Industries on Wages
Youngbin Seo (University of Seoul) and Heonjae Song (University of Seoul)Year 2023Vol. 16No. 2
Abstract
This study analyzes the effects of the female ratio in industries on wages using
the Korean Labor and Income Panel (KLIPS) from 2009 to 2019 and the Korean
Survey Report on Labor Conditions by Employment Type. The main estimation
results are summarized as follows. First, the higher the female ratio in
industries, the more negatively it affects wages. Second, as the proportion of
woman in the industry increases, men’s wages decrease more than women’s
wages. These results can be attributed to differences in human capital
accumulated by workers rather than individual abilities. We suspect that the
reason of these results are the labor choice of Korean women with high human
capital who entered high paying jobs hesitate to renter a labor market due to the
low expected wages after women’s career break, and it might cause this
phenomenon. The results of the study suggest that the quality of women's labor
market should be improved and we need to make significant efforts to resolve
the gender wage gap.