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Graduating to a gender wage gap in South Korea

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  • Tromp, Nikolas
  • Kwak, Juwon

Abstract

Using data from the Graduates Occupational Mobility Survey and unconditional quantile regressions, this paper analyzes gender wage gaps among recent tertiary graduates in South Korea. Unconditional log wage gaps at the mean, 10th quantile and 90th quantile are 0.190, 0.146 and 0.239 which are at least half the size of the respective wage gaps among the general population. Aggregate decompositions show that composition effects are similar across the distribution while structural effects are larger further up the distribution, therefore driving wider gaps in high-wage positions. Detailed composition effects show that high school type, field of study, firm size and occupation explain at least 50% of the wage gaps. Major drivers include low rates of women in high school science tracks; university engineering courses; large firms; and manufacturing, sales and trade occupations as well as high rates of women in small firms and administrative, health and social welfare occupations. Lastly, the use of detailed categories for fields of study and occupations is shown to substantially increase the size of composition effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Tromp, Nikolas & Kwak, Juwon, 2022. "Graduating to a gender wage gap in South Korea," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:asieco:v:78:y:2022:i:c:s1049007821001366
    DOI: 10.1016/j.asieco.2021.101408
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    Cited by:

    1. Bazen, Stephen & Charni, Kadija, 2023. "Gender Differences in the Early Career Earnings of Economics Graduates," IZA Discussion Papers 15954, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender wage gap; Tertiary graduates; South Korea; Distributional decompositions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C10 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - General
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

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