The Glass Ceiling Persists in Korean Society... Female CEOs Account for Only 3.6% of Domestic Listed Companies

[Asia Economy Reporter Suyeon Woo] The proportion of female CEOs among domestic listed companies is only at the 3% level, revealing that the 'glass ceiling' in Korean society remains firmly in place.

On the 9th, the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) analyzed business reports of domestic listed companies over the past five years and found that as of 2019, out of 3,187 CEOs of domestic listed companies, only 115 were female CEOs, accounting for just 3.6% of the total. Although this proportion has gradually increased from 2.8% in 2015, 3.1% in 2017, to 3.6% in 2019, the overall share remains low.

According to the U.S. women's NGO Catalyst, as of January this year, the proportion of female CEOs in S&P 500 companies is about 6%. While the level is still not high among major global companies, Korea's female CEO ratio of 3.6% is far below this.

Proportion of Female CEOs Among Domestic Listed Companies
(Unit: Number, %)(Source: Korea Listed Companies Association, Federation of Korean Industries)
※ CEOs include only those at the representative director level as stated in business reports, such as Chairman, Vice Chairman, President, Representative Chairman of the Board, Representative Director Vice Chairman, Representative Director President, Representative Director Vice President, Representative Director Executive Director, Representative Director Managing Director, Chief Executive Officer, and Bank President.

The number of female executives and female employees in domestic listed companies has steadily increased over the past five years, but their proportions remain low. The share of female executives among all executives barely rose from 3% in 2015 to about 4.5% in 2019, and the proportion of female employees among all employees increased by only 0.9 percentage points, from 24.7% in 2015 to 25.6% in 2019.

The rate of promotion to executive positions within the same gender also shows that women face about seven times more difficult barriers than men. As of 2019, the proportion of male executives relative to male employees in domestic listed companies was 2.3%, while the proportion of female executives relative to female employees was only 0.3%.

By industry, the proportion of female executives was relatively high in education services (16.4%), arts, sports, and leisure services (9.9%), business facility management, business support, and rental services (7.8%), information and communications (6.9%), and professional, scientific, and technical services (6.9%). In contrast, construction (1.8%), transportation and warehousing (3.2%), finance and insurance (3.7%), and manufacturing (4.0%) had low proportions.

By company size, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) had the highest proportion of female executives, with the share decreasing as company size increased to mid-sized and large companies. As of 2019, the proportion of female executives was 5.5% in SMEs, 4.4% in mid-sized companies, and 3.8% in large companies. However, the trend over the past five years shows steady growth across all company sizes.

Kim Bong-man, Director of International Cooperation at FKI, said, "The advancement of women into senior positions in domestic companies is still at a lower level compared to major global companies. Since promoting women's participation in society also contributes to our economic growth, companies and the government need to make efforts to expand the female workforce."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.