KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

Abstract

Korean Women Manager Panel

Seung-hyun Lee

Eun-jung Kim

Ho-jung Bae

Min-ho Lee

So-young Kwon

Woo-ri Noh

Ji-eun Lee

Keun-tae Kim

Yoo-bin Kim

Gwang-sung Choi

 

 

The Korean Women Manager Panel survey is implemented to achieve two major goals. The first goal is to monitor various situations and discrimination that women experience in the labor market and the second goal is to provide the justification and basis for policies aimed at increasing women managers. The Korean Women Manager Panel survey is the only survey that observes the employment and growth process of women managers in companies to figure out their labor conditions and career development, in-company working conditions, organizational culture, usual practices of promotion to manager positions and obstacle factors, not only in Korea but also overseas. Similar surveys fail to trace individual women managers from their entrance to the labor market to their departure from it, and this makes the Korean Women Manager Panel a differentiated survey.

 

The Korean Women Manager Panel survey was first carried out in 2007, and has followed up the status of human resources, labor conditions, etc. of women managers in private companies ever since. The survey is mainly used by researchers in academia and research institutions as well as policy makers in government ministries. Accordingly, the Korean Women Manager Panel survey has been utilized as basic data on the issue of Korean women’s glass ceiling in companies, roles of companies and society related to women’s career interruption, determinants of promotion for women managers, etc. by researchers and policy makers. The survey results have been published through nine symposiums, five forums, and three academic conferences to share and disseminate the outcomes, and data materials from the analysis report and the result data are made available on the webpage each time.

 

The Korean Women Manager Panel survey is conducted on both women managers and human resources officers in Korean companies with 100 or more employees in all industrial fields. Notably, through the survey of human resources officers, various data on the status of companies such as general situations, manpower status, personnel management systems, and flexible work program is collected, thereby enhancing the utilization of the results and improving the survey’s practical and academic values. In the seven surveys carried out between 2007 and 2018, difficulties in career retention experienced by Korean women were demonstrated through identification of cases in which women managers drop out of the panel due to their resignation. Thus, the Korean Women Manager Panel survey is highly valuable as policy basis and will be utilized more widely in the policy making aimed at women’s representation, etc.

 

In 2022, the third main survey in the second phase of the Korean Women Manager Panel, which was newly organized in 2019, was conducted. The second phase surveys trace the career paths women managers go through in their organizations until they achieve career success, with a focus on the new competencies and roles required for managers in the current labor market that has undergone numerous changes. The purpose of the second phase surveys is to figure out the status of women’s participation in the labor market, generate policy basis to help ensure gender diversity there, and accumulate basic data for the analysis of changes in women’s labor according to social changes.

 

The overall plan for the second phase of the Korean Women Manager Panel can be summarized in the following four aspects: first, the survey contents are intended to suggest specific factors for women’s career success with a focus on their individual competencies that directly affect women’s career retention and career success. Second, subjects of the survey are male and female from manager up to executive levels. Third, a new panel of 5,011 managers comprising 3,500 female managers and 1,511 male managers was formed to allow gender comparison. Fourth, the panel survey is conducted every year to increase the retention rate and enable stable survey implementation, while mainly using online and mobile survey in consideration of the COVID-19 pandemic situation.

 

Major tasks for the 2022 Korean Women Manager Panel survey are organization of workshops and the initiation report meeting, improvement and supplementation of survey contents, organization of the interim report meeting, achievement of the Statistics Korea’s approval for alterations, implementation of the third main survey on the new panel and human resources officers, organization of two forums and an academic conference, implementation of the Statistics Korea’s regular quality evaluation, etc. This year’s main survey was conducted on the panel of 5,011 male and female managers newly formed in 2020 as well as 604 human resources officers. The sampling of the panel was made based on the Census on Establishments carried out based on the statistics as of the end of December 2017 using two-phase sampling method, and the survey used questionnaires improved and supplemented this year.

 

The result of the basic analysis of the survey data from 2021 shows substantial differences between the two genders in terms of personal characteristics. Also, significant differences appear between the two genders in terms of their situations in organizations, status of career development, etc. Therefore, it is expected that active utilization of the second phase survey data on male and female managers will be made according to various purposes in the future. In addition, analysis of the survey data on human resources officers was made to examine the general situations of companies included in the second phase panel, human resources management practices, ways of working and cultures, maternity/paternity protection and work/life balance programs, manpower status, etc. The data on human resources officers, which can be analyzed along with the data on male and female managers showing diversified characteristics of 604 Korean companies with 100 or more employees in all industrial fields, is expected to promote the utilization of the second phase survey data in the future. The analysis of the relevant issue items (on whether work/life balance systems were introduced due to the COVID-19) indicates that most companies introduced ‘homeworking and teleworking system’ and a majority of the companies introduced ’family care leave’ and ‘family care break’ programs after the spread of COVID-19.

 

Topic-based in-depth analyses were made on three subjects. Through the analysis of the first subject of ‘the causes of long-term employment of and departure by managerial workers,’ the need to promote childcare and childbirth support is suggested to increase the possibility of long-term employment of managers. In particular, it was suggested that in-company support related to commuting time and establishment of the working environment system responding to the spread of infectious diseases including COVID-19 would positively affect the prevention of departure by women managers and their career interruption. Through the analysis of the second topic of ‘the relationship between the percentage of female executives and middle manager promotion and wage level,’ it was seen that the CEO’s gender, the company’s type of business, the company’s size, etc. were factors that influence the percentage of female executives. It was also found that higher percentage of female executives led to higher percentage of women in the company’s workforce and higher annual salary for male and female managers. Finally, through the analysis of the third topic of ‘the impact of spouses’ care sharing on work life satisfaction by male and female managers and work-family spillover,’ it was found that division of roles including family care in Korean homes is still based on traditional gender roles, and that the burden of family care is likely to impede the accumulation of female human resources. Accordingly, it is suggested that changes in the division of roles at home and increased awareness are important to prevent departure of women managers from the labor market.

 

Research areas: Panel, Labor？employment, Representation

Keywords: Women manager, Men manager, Women representation, Women’s career development, Panel survey