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.