Six in 10 workers say they perceive gender-based discrimination in hiring, promotions and job placements.
Workplace Bullying 119 commissioned polling firm Global Research to survey 1,000 workers nationwide aged 19 and older between Feb. 2 and 8. The group said 60.7% believe there are gender-based differences in employment.
By gender, 73.1% of women reported discrimination compared with 49.1% of men, revealing a clear gap in perception.
Respondents who said discrimination exists most frequently cited assignment to job categories or duties based on gender stereotypes (55.8%). Other common reasons were career interruptions due to childbirth and childcare (51.9%), gender bias and prejudice in performance evaluations (31.6%), and limited leadership experience and access to management roles (16.3%).
Reported experiences of gender discrimination were also high: 57.3% of respondents said they had experienced it — 67.5% of women and 47.8% of men.
But remedies for victims remain limited. Only 47.6% of those who experienced gender discrimination knew about the official corrective process for employment discrimination, and just 22% actually filed a correction request.
The data also exposed problems with the system’s effectiveness. According to records obtained by the office of Democratic Party lawmaker Jang Cheol-min from the Ministry of Employment and Labor, of 111 correction requests filed with the Labor Commission’s Discrimination Correction Committee between May 2022 and March 2026, only seven resulted in correction orders.
Kang Eun-hee, a lawyer on Workplace Bullying 119’s Special Committee on Gender Violence, urged an expansion of the legal standards used to determine discrimination and called on the Labor Commission to take a more proactive stance so the law prohibiting gender-based employment discrimination does not become ineffective.
Meanwhile, OECD statistics show South Korea’s gender wage gap stood at 29.3% in 2023 — the largest among 38 member countries and roughly 2.6 times the OECD average (11.3%).
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