Structure and Characteristics of Women’s Unemployment Based on the Extended Unemployment

During the financial crisis at the end of the 1990s, unemployment rates in South Korea spiked and provoked related research on unemployment. However, little work on gender gaps in unemployment rates has since been undertaken, partially because the unemployment rate for women continues to remain lower than the rate for men. This paper attempts to observe the trend in the women’s unemployment rate since the year 2000 and analyze why a gender gap in unemployment rates exists. The unemployment rate serves as a measure of underutilized labor supply and can be defined in a number of ways. Considering the limitations manifested in the official indicator of the unemployment rate, this paper suggests an alternative indicator that would include the time-related underemployed, discouraged workers and other inactive individuals. The official women’s unemployment rate was 2.7 percent in 2011, lower than 3.3 percent recorded among men. When applying the proposed indicator instead, the women’s unemployment rate for that year increases to 9.1 percent, actually slightly higher than the corresponding men’s rate (9.0 percent).