Japanese and South Korean management are 85% male. Men are presumed more competent, favoured in promotions, treated as potential managers. Women are cheap underlings, mere subordinates. Whatever their skills or aspirations, Japanese women may be expected to mother, pour the tea, run
Great analysis as usual. You may be interested in a light-hearted but serious examination of many of these issues in Japan through the "Full-time Wife Escapist" drama (https://www.netflix.com/title/81410833). It is a refreshingly frank examination of many of the constraints and expectations placed on women. If culture is a leading indicator of change, there may be hope yet.
I wonder how you are measuring the pay gap. The almost 20% US pay gap is simply not true. Around 1970, my workshop group with Gary Becker found a 6% residual pay difference that we could not explain. More recent extensive work has found a smaller residual. Surely, if a firm could reduce its wage expense by 20@ by hiring only women, it would do so; and if the women had the same value (marginal productivity) as men other firms would have to also hire women and the “gap” would be bid away very quickly.
I have been living and working in korea for 13 years, most of what i read on the country triggers eye rolls but this is very deep.
Thank you.
I would like to ask one precision and share one further thought.
- did you manage to find any discrepancy between large companies and small / medium sized businesses? Large companies are behind western counterparts, but I can honestly see a positive movement in Samsung Electronics since I joined. I also understand Korean SMBs can have less professional management (owner - patriarchal culture) so i am curious about the data.
- i think an aggravating effect to the above is the dark side of human networks in lifetime employment organizations. In all companies, the org chart is one thing, the actual flow of information another.
In most tech companies, where tenure is ~2 years, information has to flow along clear lines and there are clearer procedures and r&r in place in explicit written form. It s hard to have sexist procedures written down.
In employment for life companies, r&r, information flows are more informal because almost everybody is an incumbent and knows what these are. So it s easy for women, foreigners and other new elements to be excluded thereby aggravating the situation for the 'foreign' elements.
Seeing Japan and South Korea collapse into economic irrelevance because they hate women so badly will be amusing. I hope it happens quickly and brutally.
So your proposed solution is government gender quotas and civil rights lawsuits for perceived disparate impact?
That seems like an extreme solution over a 20% - > 35% difference in the "pay gap"* that you think is mostly localized in low end labor that probably doesn't even cover the cost of child care.
I'd also caution using Singapore or HK. These are tiny city state trading hubs. It's a very different niche than primary manufacturing exporters like Japan and SK. I could likely find a lot of differences across all sorts of metrics compared to the city states, but it wouldn't tell you much about what these larger countries should do.
*The fact that the 20% pay gap figure for the US is cited here, despite being debunked many times over, doesn't give me a lot of confidence in these figures.
Great analysis as usual. You may be interested in a light-hearted but serious examination of many of these issues in Japan through the "Full-time Wife Escapist" drama (https://www.netflix.com/title/81410833). It is a refreshingly frank examination of many of the constraints and expectations placed on women. If culture is a leading indicator of change, there may be hope yet.
I wonder how you are measuring the pay gap. The almost 20% US pay gap is simply not true. Around 1970, my workshop group with Gary Becker found a 6% residual pay difference that we could not explain. More recent extensive work has found a smaller residual. Surely, if a firm could reduce its wage expense by 20@ by hiring only women, it would do so; and if the women had the same value (marginal productivity) as men other firms would have to also hire women and the “gap” would be bid away very quickly.
Fascinating. It’s interesting that despite having very different gender dynamics in the work force, both of these spheres (Japan+SK and
SHKT) have astonishingly low birth rates. Does that surprise you? Makes East Asian birth rates seem like even more of a puzzle.
Wow what an article.
I have been living and working in korea for 13 years, most of what i read on the country triggers eye rolls but this is very deep.
Thank you.
I would like to ask one precision and share one further thought.
- did you manage to find any discrepancy between large companies and small / medium sized businesses? Large companies are behind western counterparts, but I can honestly see a positive movement in Samsung Electronics since I joined. I also understand Korean SMBs can have less professional management (owner - patriarchal culture) so i am curious about the data.
- i think an aggravating effect to the above is the dark side of human networks in lifetime employment organizations. In all companies, the org chart is one thing, the actual flow of information another.
In most tech companies, where tenure is ~2 years, information has to flow along clear lines and there are clearer procedures and r&r in place in explicit written form. It s hard to have sexist procedures written down.
In employment for life companies, r&r, information flows are more informal because almost everybody is an incumbent and knows what these are. So it s easy for women, foreigners and other new elements to be excluded thereby aggravating the situation for the 'foreign' elements.
Thank you for your article and research.
what about women owned businesses?
Seeing Japan and South Korea collapse into economic irrelevance because they hate women so badly will be amusing. I hope it happens quickly and brutally.
So your proposed solution is government gender quotas and civil rights lawsuits for perceived disparate impact?
That seems like an extreme solution over a 20% - > 35% difference in the "pay gap"* that you think is mostly localized in low end labor that probably doesn't even cover the cost of child care.
I'd also caution using Singapore or HK. These are tiny city state trading hubs. It's a very different niche than primary manufacturing exporters like Japan and SK. I could likely find a lot of differences across all sorts of metrics compared to the city states, but it wouldn't tell you much about what these larger countries should do.
*The fact that the 20% pay gap figure for the US is cited here, despite being debunked many times over, doesn't give me a lot of confidence in these figures.
Comparing Russia with China seems like it would be worth while.