Structural Inequality amid Crisis: Gender Wage Gaps across Segmented Labor Markets in South Korea during COVID-19

• In Event: Race, Gender and Governance

Abstract

Grounded in labor market segmentation theory, this study analyzes whether COVID-19 has intensified gendered labor market segmentation and widened the gender wage gap in South Korea. Using an unbalanced panel from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS), the sample is restricted to working-age employees from 2016 to 2020. A triple-differences (DDD) design is employed to estimate the effect of employment in the external labor market, treating gender as a moderating variable and defining the temporal dimension by a pre–post COVID-19 indicator. To support identification, evidence on parallel pre-pandemic trends is examined using a Granger causality test across treatment and gender subgroups. The estimate indicates that, following the pandemic, being employed in the external labor market—relative to being employed in the internal labor market—led to an approximately 17% greater decline in women’s hourly wages than in men’s (DDD = −0.189 log points; 95% CI: −0.352 to −0.027). The parallel-trends assumption appears to hold over the pre-pandemic period, corroborating the robustness of the DDD estimate. In light of these findings, policy measures for workers in temporary and day-labor employment that strengthen job security and ensure equitable pay are expected to mitigate gender wage disparities and enhance resilience to future economic shocks.

Keywords: COVID-19; gendered labor market segmentation; gender wage gap; labor market segmentation theory; difference-in-differences-in-differences (DDD); Granger causality test

The full paper is available at the following link :)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17cNao_8UQv_X5A-Erd-P2TKP5jsRXHs7/view?usp=sharing

The presentation materials are available at the following link. The presentation will take about 10 minutes.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K7ayVLYsnXuHmN5TGL2kv-DZ7w9z2x4I/view?usp=sharing

Authors

• Jun Kim, Department of Social Welfare, Ewha Womans University
  Presenting Author

• Youngmin Cho, Ewha Womans University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author