노동시장에서의 성별 분절화현상

The Trends of Occupational Sex Segregation

The purpose of this study is to estimate the degree of occupational sex segregation in Korean labor market. The data used in this study is 'The Report on Occupational Wage Surveys, 1995 and 2000', compiled annually by the Korea Labor Institute. Empirical Investigations suggest that the degree of occupational sex segregation has remained considerably stable since 1960s, in spite of the increase of female labor force participation. According to the human capital theory, female workers are segregated in low-paying, female-type occupations and unskilled job in marginal industry because of their low human capital. On the contraty, the dual labor market theory suggested that women are overrepresented in the 'secondary labor market' that doesn't reqire stable working habit ; wages are low, turnover rate is high, and job ladders are few. In this study I reexamined the trend of occupational sex segregation from 1995 to 2000. The results of analyses are as follows. First, the differences of human capital stock by sex are reduced as women have more chance to be educated. But the degree of occupational sex segregation has remained considerably stable from 1995 to 2000. The Duncan index increased from 54.75 in 1995 to 58.87 in 2000. Second, the wage differentials by sex wasn't determined exclusively by the sex difference in human capital stocks. This found that there are wage differentials resulting from only the sex, even if men and women have the same human capital stocks. Third, based on regressin analysis of wage determination, I found that the female-concentration has significant effect on the wage structure in each job, after controlling human capital stocks, job characteristics, firm characteristics and individual characteristics. I also found that the more the ratio of the female warkers in a job, the less the mean wage of that job. I also found that the more the ratio of the female workers in a job, the less the median wage of that job. I also found that the more the ratio of the female workers in a job, the more the skewness of that job wage. This result may be regarded as to verify my hypothesis that percentage female has independent negative wage effect which cannot be reduced into effect of human capital, job character, firm characteristics and individual characteristics. This result strongly supports crowding hypothesis. Overall, the results of my analysis showed the labor market structure in Korea is not gender neutral. Therefore, the increase of female labor force participation, without reducing the degree of occupational sex segregation will have limited influence to improve economic status of female in Korea.