Contents

Gender wage gap among the migrant workers in South Korea

focused on the group of spouses of Korean citizen

LEE, Soyoung

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Abstract

The wage inequalityamong group of female and migrant workers in Korea has been reported as the worst among the OECD member countries. Since such types of inequality are inherent within Korean culture, women migrant workers in Korea are more likely to be exposed to such discrimination in labor market. Hence, this study aims to analyze the gender wage gap the women migrant workers in Korea experience compared to their gender counterparts, particularly focused on the group of foreign spouses married to Korean citizens. To do so, OLS multiple regression is selected as a model to demonstrate the correlation between monthly wage and critical wage determinants such as gender, countries of origin, and educational attainment by utilizing a set of raw data from “A Study on the National Survey of Multicultural Families in 2012”.

After controlling variables that contain personal background, human capital level and labor market conditions, there is still a wage gap of approximately 630,000 Won, indicating that the female workers havebeen receiving lower wage then the male workers. In terms of personal background characteristics, theirwage is largely differentiated by migrants’ countries of origin. The ones from developed countries earn higher salaries whereas the ones from developing countries earn less compared to the reference group, Korean-Chinese (Joseonjok).

In terms of human capital aspect, higher educational attainment has a positive relationship with wage, but Korean language proficiency shows an insignificant relationship with wage difference. Moreover, when the sample was grouped by countries of origin, migrants from the Philippines have the biggest gender wage gap and those from Vietnam have the smallest gender wage gap among the most populated country group of migrants.

Based on such results, this study suggests a provision of specialized vocational training to the unskilled migrant workers in order to increase their employment rates in skilled and technical industries. The training may also bring the effect of counter-balancing the gender wage gap between male and female migrant workers as it would lower the high proportion of skillabsent female migrant workers. That also includes a development of a Korean language education curriculum for the migrants to step ahead from simple daily communications and to be more situation specialized. Lastly, in consideration of the residential geographical distribution of women migrant workers, fitting the local economy’s characteristics and demands to the training may enhance workers’ productivity and the wage level.

Advisors
Choi, Seul ki
Department
KDI School, Master of Development Policy
Issue Date
2016
Publisher
KDI School
Description
Thesis(Master) --KDI School:Master of Development Policy,2016
Keywords
Pay equity--Korea (South)
Immigrants--Employment--Korea (South)
Contents
I. INTRODUCTION

II. STATISTICS ON MIGRANTS IN KOREA

III. LITERATURE REVIEW

IV. METHODOLOGY

V. FINDINGS

VI. CONCLUSION

VII. LIMITATION OF THE STYDY AND RECOMMENDATION FOR FURTHER STUDY
Pages
41 p.
URI
https://archives.kdischool.ac.kr/handle/11125/31865
Type
Thesis
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