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Women’s Challenges in Korea’s Work Environment
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By Tom Coyner
Korea Times
July 13, 2007
My first encounter with Korea’s sexual differentiation was in 1975 as a new
Peace Corps volunteer going through pre-service training. Often our most
important survival skills were taught by experienced Peace Corps volunteer
instructors. Without doubt the most important lesson I picked up from these
folks was that when in the village bow respectfully to the male elders - but
watch out for the women, since it was the women who really rule.
Most Westerners expect and witness a major separation - and often
discrimination - between the sexes in Korea. While men may dominate in
society, again, the real rulers of Korea are the women - traditionally at
home, often running the small family businesses, but almost always
controlling the household finances. While everyone always bows first to the
eldest male in the home, normally the real power can be the mother of the
husband who manages the affairs of everyone in the home, followed by the
wife who is second in command with direct responsibilities for the welfare
and education of the children as well as investing the family income. The
financial difference between two similar male wage earners’ incomes often is
due to the business acumen or investment luck of the wife. Should all
parents-in-law be deceased or living apart, the husband assumes the de facto
authority of his mother. Still, in such a case, his wife carries on,
controlling the home - including even managing the husband’s discretionary
money spending.
As strong as the superficial and real advantages of men over women may be,
the yet stronger controlling factor is age. Even in the business world, an
older woman can hold sway over younger men, which may be one of the reasons
why Korean companies have traditionally urged women to retire as they become
pregnant. Things remain simple with an older male manager supervising a
younger female employee. Today’s young men are even generally at ease when
reporting to female supervisors - provided the woman supervisor is older or,
at the very least, has more years of relevant company experience.
Matters can become complicated within most Korean companies should a younger
manager need to supervise an older employee regardless of sex. As Korean
companies move more to merit-based promotions and away from seniority
systems, this Confucian mentality often forces the early retirement of
senior managers as a means of the company preventing discord caused by a
younger employee managing one or more older staff members. Too often the
first to go are women.
For example, in some corporations, the supervising managers do not do
performance appraisals. The overall distribution of appraisal scores and
grades are fixed and can have a large-scale influence on the final
individual appraisal results. Often the number of appraisals by grade is
pre-ordained, such as by a pre-determined bell curve. The best appraisals
are reserved to senior and older managers since for them not to get a high
rating could quickly lead to early, involuntary retirement. Also, married
men supporting families tend to rate better than single women. From an
individual employee’s perspective, this may not seem to be fair, but from
the group’s concern for the overall welfare of the employees, there is a
rationale.
Many Korean managers are not anti-female, but they expect male employees to
shoulder or eventually shoulder the majority financial responsibility of
raising a family. Therefore, when push comes to shove, women employees often
unfairly lose out.
And yet, things even in Confucian Korea are changing. Korean women are
assuming wider and greater roles in business, so their presence is being
felt more significantly than ever. For example, business entertainment or
after-work dining/drinking is an important part of Korean business.
Traditionally, women were often invited but not expected to stay on late
into the evening. But even here, change is in motion.
Increasingly Korean businesswomen are feeling free to invite and to attend
after-work entertainment occasions A proper evening out on the town starts
with a restaurant and ends after visiting two or more bars. Attending the
restaurant is, again, no problem and possibly the same with the first bar.
Still, it may be wise for the businesswoman to be attentive if the guys are
going to be ill at ease with her joining the second or third bar. Change
does not happen overnight and pushing the issue too hard can be
counterproductive. On the other hand, Korean businessmen can be delighted
that businesswomen wish to continue on. The problem, of course, is alcohol
and it is not enough that the woman alone is in control of her senses. So,
there are no easy words of advice on this topic since the situation can vary
considerably.
While most younger Korean men and women are much more progressive about fair
and equal treatment of women than their older male managers, the corporate
bodies tend to be systemically conservative. In due time, many liberal
thinking men conform to the majority and most women eventually give up any
ideas of getting past often rather low glass ceilings. Consequently women
tend to be among Korea’s least leveraged resources.
But the picture is not entirely black. One of the positives of the IMF
crisis at the turn of the century was the sale of major Korean companies to
foreign corporations. Motivated by global commitments to employee diversity
and/or recognizing the untapped potential of many Korean female employees,
foreign controlled Korean companies are implementing fair employment
practices and proving to the rest of the market the competitive advantages
of promoting competent female employees into responsible management
positions.
Recently local newspapers noted that of Korea Exchange Bank’s recent 114
promotions to management, more than 40 percent were female. Two years ago,
less than half of that percentage was female. What was not reported was that
Korea Exchange Bank is now under foreign management. In contrast, only about
10 percent of Korea’s overall managers are female. But even that is progress
when one considers that nine years ago, less than one percent of Korean
managers were women.
One of the challenges is for women to develop the self-confidence and image
to take on serious management responsibilities. Even in junior grades, women
often refuse to do less than pleasant duties, such as traveling on extended
trips into the countryside and to smaller cities from Seoul, that their
young male counterparts accept as part of ``paying one’s dues.’’ Undoubtedly
many young female employees cannot see the value in paying the dues when
ultimately there is no real opportunity for extended career growth.
Also, as was the case in the West, young aspiring Korean female business
professionals lack the mentorship that their male cohorts enjoy. If there is
a woman in a senior position, too often she is in another department and
getting too close to a senior manager in another department can make for
hazardous corporate politics. And as with anywhere, if a woman is to succeed
in general and senior management, she needs to determine to what degree can
she stay true to her intrinsic feminine values without being mistaken as
being incapable by her masculine co-workers. Until there are more Korean
female executive role models, the current generation of women managers will
likely have to suffer through an ongoing trial of success and error in the
workplace.
While not an entirely happy picture, it is an encouraging one. Korea is
opening its marketplace not only to new products and services but also to
new management ideas. As more Korean companies discover the competitive
advantages of fully engaging the capabilities of all employees, in time most
other companies will follow suit, if only out of economic necessity. When
that happens, Korean women will be stepping out from homes and family stores
-- and finally will be publicly acknowledged for their genuine role in this
society.
Tom Coyner is president of Soft Landing Korea (www.softlandingkorea.com),
a human resources and sales-focused business development firm, and co-author of Mastering
Korean Business: A Practical Guide.
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