KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

According to the research which surveyed 2 million businesses of 32 European countries and was published by IMF in March 2016, businesses with more women in the top management and executive positions showed higher profitability. One more woman in the top management and executive positions is translated into 0.01% higher returns on assets. The research indicates that higher profitability will increase investments and productivity, and that more European women engaged in economic activities will be the solution for potential growth slowdown of Europe. The employment rate of women aged between 15 and 64 was 55.7% in 2015, which is still 20%p lower than 75.7% of the employment rate of the male counterpart. The IMF research has valuable implications for Korea where the gap between employment rates of men and women aged between 15 and 64 reaches 20%p, as we can reach the conclusion that qualitative increase of the employment rate of women and the increase of the percentage of female executives in the top management will contribute to the growth of the national wealth of Korea as well as the business results of individual enterprises. CEO Score analyzed the gender diversity index measuring discrimination for women at 500 enterprises, and concluded that enterprises with higher percentages of women employed have higher percentages of female executives. It is only natural that enterprises with higher percentages of women employed have higher percentages of female executives, and indicates that increased employment of women should be a precondition to enable women to be promoted to executives.

Korean Women Manager Panel is the nation's only research to identify the status of businesses' use of female human resources and acquire basic data about individual female managers' career development and competency building within enterprises; and tracks female managers' promotion paths from assistant managers to executives.

The 6th survey for 2016 Korean Women Manager Panel was completed in 2016. 1,762 out of 3,159 valid samples of Women Manager Panel were surveyed, recording the sample retention rate of 55.8%.

To promote the results of the research, 2016 Korean Women Manager Panel conducted the graduate thesis competition using Korean Women Manager Panel data in 2016 for the first time since the first Korean Women Manager Panel survey was conducted in 2007. The best thesis won the prize of the Minister of Gender Equality and the prize of President of Family and Korean Women's Development Institute. In addition, the first academic seminar was held in 2016, and produced 19 papers analyzing movement of female managers in the labor market and various issues related to female managers including career-interruption, the work-life balance, promotion and career development.

2016 Korean Women Manager Panel also conducted a research program to build rapport with panels and increase the panel retention rate. 2016 is the year when the 6th wave survey is completed, and the hand-written letters were sent to the panels whose participation in the previous five surveys was not consistent to encourage their participation. Korean Women Manager Panel distributes newsletters every other year. Panels participating in Korean Women Manager Panel were invited to write for the 2016 newsletter, which featured female managers' essays about their life and work.