KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

The purpose of this study is to make women's HRD strategies regarding national economic policies. Of particular interest in 2010 was green growth, and this study explored the relationship between green growth and women's HRD policies. First, we analyzed labor supply and demand driven by green growth. Second, we tried to find promising occupations which are appropriate to women. Third, we reviewed other countries' policies and developed implications. We utilized various methods such as statistical analysis using national sample survey of green firms. Since green growth is a new strategy in Korea, we tried Delphi survey on with various expert groups related to green growth strategy.

Green growth strategy is a chance to increase jobs in terms of changes in both consumption and production patterns. Thus, labor demand is expected to be increased to support the growth. Current status of men and women college graduated shows that more men have green related majors than women have. In addition to this, more men are working at green industries. Since green industries are still segregated to male dominant fields, government intervention programs are inevitable in order to increase utilization of women in green growth industries.

In order to derive future labor demand, we surveyed 1,000 green firms in Korea. We allocated the samples depending upon the firm size and business areas, which are sorted by National Committee of Green Growth. The fields include and not limited to new and recycled energy, energy efficiency, climate forecast and its impact, green construction, water environment, and low-carbon economic activities. The proportion of green sales is 65% on average in each firm. The firms are more likely to try green business due to the changes of market as well as the policy drives. They are optimistic to the future market conditions both in domestic and foreign markets. They experienced several obstacles in pursuing businesses such as initial cost, the lack of skilled labor, and the lack of technologies. They hired less women than men. Women were more likely to have operation or production related occupations in green firms.

Delphi results by expert groups show that firms have higher labor demand in technology and sales divisions in the near future. In particular, low-carbon economic activities, mostly service industries and energy industries have higher labor demand than other industries. The levels of skill vary according to industries. Newly generated markets are more likely to require skilled labor, but existing business areas are more likely to generate demand for unskilled labor.

US and EU countries had several cases of policy intervention for green job creation. Those were mostly focused on training and vocational education, provision of information and networks, and providing several employment subsidies. However, there were few actions for women. In Korea, policy interventions had started regarding green growth and human resources since 2009. We need to build up the policies about women's HRD and employment at this moment.

The findings from this study support that policies for women in green growth need to include gender main-streaming in national economic growth, women's vocational training, and women friendly workplaces in green businesses. In addition, policies need to support women in pattern break fields such as male dominant industries. Also, establishing infrastructure and statistics should be an another important action.