대졸 취업여성의 실태와 대책

A study on college-graduated women in the workplace

The main purpose of this study is to examine the status of college-graduated women in the labor market. Even though Korean women's educational attainments have been increased remarkably during the past thirty years, the status of educated women in the labor market has not been much improved. We suspect that women's low public status in Korea is mainly due to the rigid patriarchal system operating in our society. This study is divided into three parts. First, we present the results of a survey conducted to explore actual condition of college-graduated women at the workplace. Three hundred full-time employed women having administrative, professional, or office jobs were interviewed in August and September of 1993. To explore various forms of gender discrimination at the workplace, we focused the questionnaire on respondent's subjective evaluations of working condition and interpersonal relationships. Despite the facts that all but three respondents started to work in their twenties and most of them have a quite stable job as college-graduates, majortiy of them sense serious gender discrimination at their workplace. To name a few, they most frequently list discrimination in promotion, task division, and wage increase. Second, considering the limits of the survey only with full-time employed women to represent the general status of college-graduated women in the labor market, we attempted case studies of 20 women in various situations with regards to their work. The study included women hoping to have a job, those who quit working, and under-employed women as well as currently employed women. The results of the case studies demonstrate heavy discrimination against college-graduated women especially in the recruitment process. Third, case studies of 20 personnel managers working at big organizations were done immediately after the survey of working women. The 20 selected organizations were two domestic banks, one foreign bank, one TV station, and 15 big corporations. The personnel managers were questioned about general characteristics of their organization which include the number of workers, proportion of college-graduated women, recruitment process of educated women, evaluation of women's work performance, their perception of married women as a labor force, future prospects for hiring college-graduated women, etc. The survey results prove how much conservative attitudes personnel managers have against educated female workers in general. It seems to be very difficult to expect a rapid increase of recruitment opportunities or promotion for college-graudated women in a near future. Finally, fully acknowleging the existing differential opinions between college-graduated women and personnel managers, we suggest several ways to improve educated women's status in the labor market. For all agencies surrounding college-graduated women, we suggest solutions for each agency in turns - changes at individual-level, family, college, corporation, government, and society in general.