Yoon courts lost decade for Korean women

People can debate what it means for the government of a top-12 economy to be “anti-feminist.” There is no question, though, that President Yoon Suk Yeol’s gender policies are anti-growth at the worst possible moment for South Korea’s 51 million people. 

Don’t take my word for it. The International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and Goldman Sachs, whose analysts coined “womenomics,” agree that nations that best utilize female workforces are the most vibrant, innovative and productive. 

Korea has the dubious distinction of largest gender pay gap among OECD members. In other words, fully one half of the population can expect to earn about two-thirds of the other half. “Mad Men” was an entertaining television show about the 1960s patriarchy. It shouldn’t be the economic model of a government that will lead Seoul until 2027. 

What’s not amusing is Korea’s 99th place ranking in the World Economic Forum’s gender gap report out of 146 economies. That’s better than 102nd-ranked China and 116th-place Japan. But trailing Cambodia, Cameroon and Belize is not where Korea wants to be in 2022, fully nine years after swearing in North Asia’s first female leader. 

The bigger problem is that “at the current rate of progress, it will take 132 years to reach full parity,” the WEF reckons. 

Forget 2154, let’s consider where Yoon’s policies might leave Korea by 2027. Korea doesn’t have five years to waste watching Yoon riff off Donald Trump, to some extent. Yoon’s move to shutter the ministry set up to protect women -- supposedly in the spirit of female empowerment -- is as Trumpian as political stunts get. 

Even though it’s likely to be defeated in parliament, the gambit speaks volumes about how little he understands one of Korea’s top challenges. Yoon’s tunnel vision will resign gender advancement to lost-decade status. 

The idea of lost 10-year periods is especially acute to Koreans. Since 2008, Korea has had four governments all promising paradigm-changing reforms. Fourteen years ago, Lee Myung-bak took power pledging to internationalize the economy. From 2013 to 2017, Park Geun-hye, Korea’s first female leader, also failed to put major upgrades on the scoreboard. 

The arrival of the more liberal Moon Jae-in in 2017 seemed an opportunity to empower women and achieve greater wage parity. He called himself a “feminist president.” Moon made little progress before Yoon rode male angst to power in May. 

Economics has its own “Hippocratic oath” of sorts. Even if you ignore one of your nation’s biggest headwinds, at least do no irreparable harm to progress. 

Yoon’s claims that abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family would better protect women make zero sense. If Yoon worries the ministry treats men like “potential sex criminals,” or that #MeToo went too far, why not make his case to clarify laws he thinks make Korea’s male half so vulnerable? 

On October 7, more than 100 women’s rights groups warned, correctly, that Yoon’s plan is a “regression to the past when women were used as a tool for population policy.” 

It might be wise to couch this proposed leap backyard in terms that the patriarchy might grasp: removing basic safeguards against gender discrimination would make Korea less competitive and poorer. 

The “womenomics” research Goldman Sachs has done since 1999 is worth a mention. The bank’s original case study was Japan. It argues that if Japan raised its female labor participation rate toward that of men, gross domestic product would increase by about 15 percentage points. 

Over the last 10-15 years, Korean leaders should’ve been devising ways to improve female representation in corporate boardrooms and the national assembly. Formal quotas might help. 

Seoul also could go the other way and reward gender-equality success stories. It could offer tax incentives to companies narrowing pay gaps and hiring women directors and top executives. The government should demand that companies share more data on wage and hiring disparities. 

In top-down Korea, real change often comes from the highest level of leadership. Yoon is signaling his presidency will be a lost period for equality. It means Asia’s fourth-biggest economy might have to wait another 1,668 days in hopes the next leader comprehends that gender mismatches limit growth. These next 54-plus months are a long time to wait.

There is something depressing about Lee Jong-wha, former Asian Development Bank chief economist, saying that “women remain underutilized, to the detriment of the entire economy.” Indeed, he argued, “any effective South Korean growth strategy must create more and better economic opportunities for women, in part by establishing more accommodating working environments and instituting a more diverse and flexible education system.”

Why depressing? Because Lee said this in May 2014. More than eight years later, Korea isn’t just walking in place on gender. It’s moving backward in ways the economy can least afford.

By William Pesek


William Pesek is an award-winning Tokyo-based journalist and author of Japanization: What the World Can Learn from Japan's Lost Decades. Previously, he was a columnist for Bloomberg and Barron’s.