Beyond Double Jeopardy: Differences in Gender Disadvantages between Organizational Insiders and Outsiders in Korea

• In Event: 567 - Regular Session. Gender Inequality

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine distinctive patterns of gender inequality in the internal and external labor markets in Korea. Previous studies analyzing multiple disadvantages in the labor market tend to focus on comparing the amount of gender wage gap between groups, however their not differentiating the gender gap from discrimination often results in a misleading conclusion underestimating the severe within-job discrimination that women in minority position experience. Using wage gap decomposition method, this study analyzes the gender wage gap among regular workers and non-regular workers separately. The result shows that the size of the gender wage gap is greater among workers in the standard employment relationship, but the sizable amount of the gap can be explained by the compositional difference between male and female workers. On the other hand, among non-regular workers, the gender wage gap is relatively small but most of the gap turns out to be caused by the within-job wage discrimination against women. Such divergent pattern of gender inequality between regular and non-regular workers shows a variation by firm size, and the pattern of ‘larger gap-smaller discrimination’ seems to be most prevalent among the regular workforce in large firms (>300 workers). The result shows how the segmented labor market provides a structural condition to create the complexity of gender inequality, in which women experience different forms of disadvantage depending on their locations in the labor market.

Author

• Young-Mi Kim, Yonsei University