Gender Labor Market Outcome Differentials in Korea: How Does the Horizontal Mismatch Play?

The gender wage inequality in Korea has been higher than in any other OECD country since 1996. In this paper, we study the evolution of the differentials between genders in wages and job satisfaction from 2008 to 2018 using the Graduates Occupational Mobility Survey in Korea. Wage regressions are estimated year by year for male and female workers and used to calculate the impact of horizontal mismatch on yearly wage differentials. We also estimate overall job satisfaction differentials between workers with matched jobs and non-matched jobs. To deal with unobservable heterogeneity, we utilize Heckman two-step methods. The findings imply that male workers have enjoyed higher wages and job satisfaction than their comparable female workers for both horizontally matched and not-matched group. Moreover, recent periods show that gender wage and job satisfaction differentials are consistently larger in matched job workers than in non-matched job workers. JEL Codes: J16, J28, J31, J71