New figures have been released that show the gaping wage gap between men and women in South Korea.<br />Digging into the data for us,... is our Kim Hye-sung. <br /> Data from Statistics Korea show women's average monthly wages came to about 2-thousand-50 U.S. dollars last year, up four-point-three percent from the year before.<br />Still, that's only two-thirds of what was earned by Korean men, who made on average about 3-thousand-50 U.S. dollars a month. <br /> In 2013, Korean women earned 68 cents on the dollar compared to men. That fell to around 66 cents in 2015, and then went up slightly in 2016 and 2017. <br />Statsitics Korea attributed the gender pay gap to women working irregular jobs... and to interruptions to their careers caused by marriage, childbirth and childrearing. <br /> In August 2017, 3-point-six million women, or 4 out of ten women in the labor force, were employed on a temporary basis.<br />This is much higher than the rate for men, of whom 26 percent are irregular workers. <br />At the same time, the average continuous working years for women was four-point-seven years, two-point five years shorter than that for men. <br />Yet data show the areas women work in have become more diverse.<br /> For the first time last year, women accounted for more than half of the public servants employed by Korea's interior ministry. <br />The ratio of women in law and medicine also went up compared to the previous year, coming to 26 percent, 25-point-four percent, respectively. <br />Kim Hyesung, Arirang News. <br />
