KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

According to “glass-ceiling index” created by the British weekly journal, The Economist in March 2014, Korea is the only OECD member with less than 20 points, scoring 15.5 points out of 100 points and hitting the lowest level among 27 OECD member countries. Norway has the highest score, at 78.8 points and the OECD member countries marks 53.8 points on average. South Korea accounted for 9.6% of total (OECD avg. 31.6% of total) on "Women in senior managerial positions” of “glass-ceiling index”, ranking 26th in OECD. There's no country where the proportion of women in senior managerial positions is below 10% but South Korea and Japan among OECD member countries. South Korea accounted for 1.9% of total (OECD avg. 12.5% of total) on “Women on company boards”, ranking 26th in OECD at the same rank as “Women in senior managerial positions”.

The index data mainly from the OECD shows that we seldom utilize female workforce at work. This is why the women manager panel survey is needed which can furnish all the data and information we can get on women workforce struggling to continue working and building work experience and maintain balance between work and family by using time-series analysis.

As the only survey on the women manager panel in the country, it checks to see how businesses currently make use of women workforce and furnishes preliminary data for women managers to build their work experience and make the best of themselves as a manager at work.

The main project of the survey in 2014 is to carry out the 5th wave survey stably. The survey in 2014 was made on a total of 3,279 panel, including the existing 2,361 panel during the first survey in 2007 and the newly added 918 panel of the 4th survey in 2012. Based on the results of the survey, the ratio of the original panel stands at 62.2%, resulting from the survey on 1,949 panel of the effective 3,132 panel except for 147 panel of all original 3,279 panel for the reasons such as maternity leave or childcare leave, a leave of absence from job, and work abroad. The ratio of the new panel stands at 86.0% because panel was newly added during the 4th survey in 2012.

The website online for “the women manager panel survey”, which had been one of long-cherished projects since the first survey in 2007, was made in 2014. On account of the website online, users of the women manager panel survey through the online services are able to access data and information easily and conveniently. The women manager panel survey website will provide users with all the accumulated data on information such as existing material and the result of the survey from the 1st wave to the 5th wave. The women manager panel survey is the only panel survey in the country included in “work-family balance index” released by Statistics Korea, which is a notable achievement in the women manager panel survey in 2014. The index released by Statistics Korea combines data in five categories: childcare, family friendly, leave, working hours, and female workforce and status on how women managers use their leaves in the women manager panel survey is included in category for family friendly. That means that the women manager panel survey is truly acknowledged.

The women manager panel survey in 2014 has been focused on basic analysis and cross sectional weighting methods based on the 5th wave survey results and also had some events like sending out letters or celebrating their birthdays in order to establish a close rapport with women manager panel.