Most of the time, the gap begins to widen from the starting line.

A senior who worked 16 years at the state-run Industrial Bank of Korea, says that several branch managers, who are mostly men, automatically choose to assign male employees to the task of handling corporate banking. 

Women, on the other hand, are handed the more day-to-day tasks of retail banking. Corporate finance is a coveted business among all within IBK, due to its nature as an “industrial bank,” she said, requesting to identify her only with her surname Park. 

"Some just do it without giving much thought," Park said. 

"I’ve seen branch managers hand male employees corporate banking tasks as soon as they arrive at their branch, even when female employees with previous experience in corporate banking arrive alongside them."

Park is one of roughly 3,300 staff that IBK originally hired as temporary bank tellers to handle face-to-face customer service. IBK has turned them into regular employees dealing with the same tasks in recent years, but some lenders still employ them as temporary workers, especially with the ongoing acceleration of digitalization.

“It is well-known that more than 90 percent of bank tellers are women,” a Woori Bank official said. 

According to the official, both genders are eligible to apply for the position, but a longstanding bias that it is a “woman’s job” deters men from applying. 

“Due to the nature of their job, women face higher obstacles in promotion and some banks still continue to hire them as temporary employees,” the official added.

Parenting over promotions

Not only the rigid corporate culture that makes women more passive, but also the social expectation on mothers of taking the main role in parenting is a big hurdle.

"It is a luxury for women in their late 30s, especially ones with families, to dream about rising to executive level." Park said. 

"Korean society still allows men to focus more on work, as it is deemed 'proper' for women to put their children and household chores before their careers," she explained. 

Women in the financial industry in 2020 may feel less pressure to ask for maternity leave, but they continue to lag behind in promotion because of it, experts say. On top of it, they must deal with a different type of pressure if they choose to return from the workforce from maternity leave. 

According to a survey conducted by The Korea Herald, 63.6 percent of respondents said it seems difficult for men asking for parental leave, while 48.2 percent of respondents in a separate questionnaire said women do not feel such pressure. 

"It's becoming a norm for women in the finance industry to go for maternity leave," said Lee Seung-hyun, a researcher at the state-run Korean Women’s Development Institute. 

"But they still face disadvantages in promotion when they come back from maternity leave with male bosses or colleagues’ lack of understanding for the program," she added. 

According to Lee, there is a cycle to Korea’s parenting -- where mothers are burdened with more responsibilities of educating and raising children -- that operates in sync with the corporate promotion cycle. In a nutshell, every time a mother has to make a key decision for her child’s education, it comes at about the same time as a promotion opportunity. 

"While Korea’s care and education support policy is focused on toddlers and those below 7 years old, several mothers choose to leave the workforce when the child reaches 5th or 6th grade in elementary school, when Korean society starts ‘asking’ mothers to start making serious decisions about their children‘s education," she explained. 

"It coincides with when the mother has to make decisions to either take on the promotion as manager or leave the workforce … and so on. This dilemma continues until the child leaves for college."

Women also deal with the pressure of having to adjust to the ever-changing finance industry immediately after returning to the workforce. Lee has noted that most men interpret maternity leave as similar to a vacation. 

"It’s important for men to use paternity leave as well, so parental leave becomes a gender-equal benefit," she said.

Hope for change

Those who endured a much harsher environment in the 1990s and 2000s nevertheless sense some positive changes. But work conditions are still favorable for male employees, they said.

"Male colleagues that went hiking and golfing with their boss on the weekends are likely to be promoted faster," said a managing director at a mutual financial institution who worked 28 years in the industry, wishing to be identified only by her surname Choi.

"But it’s still difficult for women to mingle or network with their male bosses that way, as society continues to frown upon such attempts with conservative views," she added. 

The Gallup Korea survey showed that 62 percent of 266 female respondents believe active intracompany networking would help them get promoted at work. On top of that, 50.5 percent of all respondents said they believe active networking outside of work is necessary for promotion. 

The finance industry’s male-centric culture and exclusion of women in key positions stand as the main obstacle in women being promoted, 49.1 percent of all respondents said in the survey. Some 26.1 percent picked women leaving the workforce due to household matters and parenting as a key hurdle. 

With the ongoing trials and errors in efforts to establish gender equality, young women in finance still have hope to continue their career in the finance industry.

"There are more women tackling ranking roles in the bank with time," said Kim. “We talk among ourselves that by the time we reach that level, there would be more opportunities for us."

In line with Kim’s hope, legal frameworks have been introduced for a change. 

Pointing to a lack of female leadership in the finance industry, a revised bill that requires listed companies with over 2 trillion won ($1.84 billion) in total assets to attain a level of gender diversity of its board members took effect in August. The law requires such companies to hire at least one female board member by July 2022, but it has received divided responses. Experts say there should be a change in thinking inside the corporate culture.

"It is important for financial companies to build a healthy pipeline of female workforce that could naturally establish a platform for women to rise to the executive level based on their own merits," said professor Yoon Jeong-koo of the School of Management at Ewha Womans University. 

"It could prompt companies to hire female executives just for show, when it fails to successfully go in sync with the company’s gender equality policies and system."

Lee at KWDI echoed Yoon, saying that the bill is yet another regulation for the companies and loopholes can always be found. 

"Regulations are always a burden for companies, whose main goal is profit-making," she said. 

"If the company starts to think it’s a loss for them to hire more women due to regulations, then the law is likely to backfire."

By Jung Min-kyung & Choi Jae-hee (mkjung@heraldcorp.com)    (cjh@heraldcorp.com)