Women hold 7% of executive positions in S. Korea’s finance sector

Women accounted for merely 7 percent of the management boards of financial institutions in South Korea, despite making up nearly half the sector’s workforce, data submitted to a lawmaker showed Wednesday.

The number of women who hold executive positions in 444 financial institutions stood at 358, or 7.4 percent of the entire executive pool of 4,855 as of end of last year, according to Financial Supervisory Service data submitted and distributed by the minor progressive Justice Party Rep. Jang Hye-yeong.

Meanwhile, of total 168,813 employees in the sector, 81,451 were female, accounting for 48.2 percent of the workforce.

Women in brokerages held the fewest executive positions, with them accounting for only 4.7 percent of the executive pool. Only 59 out of 1,311 executives in the securities industry were female.

The number of female executives in insurance and asset management firms were on par with those in brokerages. Those in the insurers accounted for 8.6 percent of the total executive pool, while the corresponding figure for asset managers stood at 8 percent in the same period.

Women executives accounted for 12.4 percent of board positions at commercial banks here, but Jang noted that the number is miniscule when taking account of the fact that the females account for more than half of the lenders’ staff. Of 67,359 employees under commercial lenders here, 35,568 were women as of end-2020.

The data comes amid the financial sector’s moves to adopt environmental, governance and social values in line with President Moon Jae-in’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 coupled with the Green New Deal initiative.

Despite, their efforts, there have been growing criticism that the firms’ goals have been leaning excessively toward the “green” aspect of the ESG values.

“Besides ESG management and investment values, building diversity within an organization is a great way of avoiding groupthink, which is why local financial institutions must make efforts to achieve diversity in governance,” Jang said.

The reform of the Capital Market and Financial Investment Business Act, which are to take effect in August 2022, states that listed companies with assets or market capitalization worth 2 trillion won ($1.77 billion) or more will be banned from forming a single-gender board of directors. Businesses have been reportedly scurrying to meet the standards, but industry watchers have also criticized the act for not including several financial companies with assets below 2 trillion won.

By Jung Min-kyung (mkjung@heraldcorp.com)