Gender Equality in Top 100 Companies: Naver Ranks 1st, HDC Hyundai Development Company Last [K Population Strategy]

(2) Comprehensive Survey on Gender Employment Status in Top 100 Domestic Sales Companies
More Female Regular Employees, Higher Seniority and Salary Correlate with Top Rankings
Lower-Ranked Companies Lack Work-Family Balance Policies Like Parental Leave

Editor's NoteThe key to solving South Korea's population problem lies within companies. A corporate atmosphere that evaluates work without gender distinction and a family-friendly culture are crucial to addressing the K population issue. While low birth rates result from complex factors, it is important to ensure that workplace burdens do not become obstacles that make people hesitate to have children. Asia Economy visited companies leading family-friendly policies to identify points where these systems have been stably established, and plans to explore various solutions with companies that lack realistic conditions. Through this, it encourages change starting from companies and analyzes the government's role in enabling this. It listens to voices emphasizing that company culture and atmosphere that reduce psychological burdens are more critical than financial support, and presents alternatives from various perspectives.

"The core of the low birth rate problem is how to reduce the opportunity costs of marriage and childbirth and enable work-family balance." This is the statement of Hong Seok-cheol, standing member of the Low Fertility and Aging Society Committee and professor of economics at Seoul National University. Kim Hyun-sook, Minister of Gender Equality and Family, also emphasizes that "work-family balance is the most fundamental measure against low birth rates." Work-family balance is closely linked to gender equality. Gender equality in companies is realized by improving childbirth conditions (maternity leave, childbirth support, etc.), childcare conditions (parental leave, flexible work, daycare establishment, etc.), and career conditions (promotion, positions, executive advancement, etc.), thereby achieving work-family balance.

Accordingly, Asia Economy investigated the gender employment status of leading domestic companies and quantified it into objective scores. Among the top 100 listed companies by sales, 96 companies with analyzable data were targeted, analyzing the status and trends over five years (2018?2022) in terms of number of regular employees, years of service, average salary, and internal/external directors. The survey results showed NAVER ranked first, while HDC Hyundai Development Company ranked last. Companies in the lower group cannot simply be classified as 'companies with poor gender equality culture.' However, additional analysis of sustainability management reports (ESG reports) focusing on companies with low scores revealed that family-friendly policy implementation was generally insufficient.

Construction and Heavy Industry at the Bottom... Last Place HDC Hyundai Development Company

The lowest score was 9.8 points, received by HDC Hyundai Development Company. HDC Hyundai Development Company scored low in regular employees (1.25 points), years of service (3.50 points), and salary (5.00 points), but especially ranked fifth from the bottom in years of service. There were no female internal or external directors, resulting in zero points in these two categories. Traditional manufacturing-based companies such as Hansol Paper (12.3 points), Doosan Enerbility (12.8 points), and Korea Zinc (13.5 points) also recorded low rankings.

Lower-ranked companies showed very poor usage of representative work-family balance systems such as male parental leave. According to HDC Hyundai Development Company's ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) report, the number of male employees eligible for parental leave was 307 in 2020, 251 in 2021, and 285 in 2022, but the actual number of male employees who took leave was only 1, 3, and 7 respectively. The same applied to female parental leave, with both the number of eligible employees and users being low. During the same period, the number of female employees eligible for parental leave was 19, 15, and 5, while actual users were 5, 4, and 2. Doosan Enerbility also had 1,618 male employees eligible for parental leave in 2022, but only 53 actually used it. Female eligible employees numbered 89 that year, with 19 actual users.

The lower group included not only traditional manufacturing companies but also construction companies. Taeyoung Construction (13.8 points), Kolon Global (14.0 points), and GS Construction (14.8 points) were among the lower ranks. Defense contractor Korea Aerospace Industries (14.5 points), automotive parts maker HL Mando (14.8 points), and KG Mobility (formerly Ssangyong Motor, 14.8 points) also appeared in the lower ranks. The poor performance of construction and heavy industry partly reflects the industry characteristic of a low female ratio.

NAVER Leads with 100% Female Internal Directors, Ranking First

NAVER ranked first overall with a total score of 35.5 out of 100. It scored above average in regular employees (4.25 points), years of service (8.50 points), and salary (7.75 points), and achieved an overwhelmingly high 15.00 points in the internal directors category. In a domestic situation where female internal directors are virtually nonexistent, NAVER is the only company among the top 100 companies with two internal directors (CEO Choi Soo-yeon and External & ESG Policy CEO Chae Sun-joo) who are both women.

The most notable family-friendly system at NAVER is the flexible work system. Industry-first adoption of a five-day workweek and 10 a.m. start times are representative examples. As of 2022, NAVER had a female employee ratio of 39%, female manager ratio of 30%, and business leader and general manager ratio of 21%.

Coway (32.3 points) ranked second overall by scoring high in years of service (16.25 points). Years of service refers to the length of continuous employment at the same company. The ratio of female to male years of service increased by 61.7 percentage points over five years. This reflects the working period of women who were promoted to team leader and converted from non-regular to regular employees. However, the number of female regular employees decreased by 18.9 percentage points over five years, resulting in a low score (2.75 points), reflecting the 2020 conversion of male-dominated repair and service (AS) staff to regular employees, which relatively decreased the proportion of female regular employees. Coway was re-certified for the fifth consecutive time last year as a family-friendly excellent company by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. Starting this year, it has set a goal to increase the female manager ratio from 29.2% in 2022 to 35.0% by 2030.

Kakao ranked third with 31.5 points. Compared to NAVER in the same industry, Kakao scored high in regular employees (4.75 points), years of service (10.00 points), salary (9.25 points), and external directors (7.50 points), but received zero points in internal directors, which lowered its ranking. With Jeong Shin-ah appointed as Kakao Ventures CEO and new Kakao CEO at the end of last year, the indicators are expected to improve this year.

According to Kakao's ESG report, the proportion of women in revenue-generating departments was 70.1% as of 2022, a high share. Kakao employees with children in second grade or younger can take two years of parental leave (including the statutory one year), and are also provided paid family care leave for various reasons such as illness, old age, and accidents.

Samsung Biologics ranked sixth (29.5 points), the highest among Samsung affiliates. Female wages reached 91.58% of male wages. Female employees accounted for 40% of the total, 1.5 times higher than the domestic manufacturing average of 30%. Samsung Biologics attributes this to blind recruitment starting from application documents. The number of female managers was also relatively high. Female executive ratio was 21.9% in 2021, female managerial ratio was 26.8% in 2022, and female middle management ratio was 33.2%. Dormitories are provided free of charge to support social independence of female workers and new hires. Mentoring programs for strengthening female leadership are also in operation. However, even these excellent companies are uniformly reluctant to disclose birth rates, making it difficult to track the correlation between gender equality policies and birth rates, which is regrettable.

Semiconductor Pride Battle, SK Hynix Wins

SK Hynix, a leading domestic semiconductor company, ranked 12th (26.8 points), nine places higher than Samsung Electronics, which tied for 21st (25.5 points). SK Hynix scored 11.50 points in years of service and 8.75 points in salary. Despite being a manufacturing-based industry, it was selected as a family-friendly top company by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family last year. The family-friendly top company award is given to companies that have maintained family-friendly certification for 15 years. SK Hynix self-assesses that it has consistently paid attention to low birth rate issues and career interruptions of female talent.

Samsung Electronics showed very poor results compared to its domestic and international corporate reputation. It has no female internal directors, and a significant gender gap in regular employees. The ratio of female regular employees to male was only 26% as of 2022. Despite implementing various policies for work-family balance, it received low evaluations in most categories, especially scoring 2.50 points in the number of regular employees category.

Secondary battery cathode material manufacturer L&F tied for 24th place (25.3 points) along with Samsung SDS and LG Uplus. It has no female executives and a tenfold difference in the number of regular employees, but scored high in years of service and salary. It ranked first in salary with 12.50 points; in 2022, the average salary per person was 76.82 million KRW for men and 86.75 million KRW for women, with women earning more. Years of service were also longer for women at 4 years 2 months compared to men’s 3 years 1 month. L&F also received its first family-friendly certification from the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family this year. An L&F representative explained, "There are more women who have worked for a long time after joining as new hires than career hires," and "Utilization of related systems such as flexible work and parental leave is high." Defense contractor Poongsan also ranked 7th with a total score of 29.0, scoring high in years of service (12.75 points) and salary (10.26 points).

"Ham Yeon-ji vs. Lim Se-ryeong" Joint 4th Place

Food industry competitors Ottogi and Daesang tied for 4th place (30.3 points). Ottogi scored relatively high in regular employees (6.25 points), salary (8.00 points), and external directors (5.0 points), while Daesang scored higher in years of service (12.75 points) and internal directors (7.00 points).

According to Daesang's ESG report, the proportion of women among all managers slightly increased from 16.2% in 2020 to 18.4% in 2022. However, the honorary chairman's second daughter, Vice President Lim Sang-min, is listed as an internal director, which somewhat diverges from the intent related to female employment. The eldest daughter, Vice Chair Lim Se-ryeong, serves as an unregistered director responsible for marketing. Ottogi, actively marketing with third-generation owner and musical actress Ham Yeon-ji, has only appointed female external directors.

CJ affiliates generally showed excellent levels. CJ CheilJedang ranked joint 14th (26.3 points), CJ Freshway joint 16th (26.0 points), and CJ Logistics joint 21st (25.5 points). CJ CheilJedang received high scores due to a small gender wage gap and inclusion of one female internal director. Kim So-young, head of the AN Business Division (vice president equivalent), whose term expires this March, is CJ CheilJedang's first female internal director. However, despite well-established work-family balance systems, there was a large gender gap in regular employees (3.75 points) and years of service (6.25 points).

Amorepacific (9th, 28.0 points), Samsung Electro-Mechanics, and E-Mart (joint 10th, 27.0 points) scored well across regular employees, years of service, and salary but received zero points in internal directors, which lowered their rankings.

Expanding female employment is a necessary and sufficient condition for solving population problems. Recently, Nordic countries have seen an increase in birth rates despite higher female economic activity rates, breaking the stereotype that more working women lead to lower birth rates. Expanding female employment also leads to national competitiveness. Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said during her visit to Korea last year, "Recent research shows that if Korea reduces its gender gap to the level of major countries, per capita income could increase by 18%," emphasizing that "efforts by the nation and companies to close the gap will bring tremendous benefits."

Harvard University professor Claudia Goldin advised that corporate culture must especially change to solve Korea's low birth rate problem. At a press conference held immediately after winning the Nobel Prize in Economics, she proposed "education of the older generation on equitable roles between men and women and changes in corporate culture" as solutions to Korea's low birth rate issue. She also cited Japan as an example, noting that although Japan implements the most inclusive national policies on maternity and parental leave, workplace culture still lags behind these policies.

Special Coverage Team 'K Population Strategy - Gender Equality is the Answer'

Reporters Kim Yuri, Lee Hyun-joo, Jung Hyun-jin, Boo Ae-ri, Gong Byung-seon, Park Joon-i, Song Seung-seop; Economic and Financial Editor Kim Pil-su