An OECD report has shown that Korea’s gender wage gap is the widest among the organization’s member countries.

According to the report, the pay gap between men and women in Korea was 39 percent in 2010, more than double the OECD average of 15 percent and much higher than that of the runner-up ― Japan’s 29 percent.

Coming next were Germany and Israel, which both marked 21 percent, and the U.S., Finland, Switzerland and Austria, which all posted 19 percent.

What is more disturbing is the fact that the gender pay gap remained almost unchanged in the past decade. In 2000, Korean women were paid 40 percent less than men, meaning that the nation had merely narrowed the gap by 1 percentage point over the 10 years.

The big income gap is largely attributable to the practice of many working women quitting their regular, high-paying jobs for child care. When they return to work later, they take up irregular, low-paying jobs.

This is well illustrated by the M-shaped pattern in women’s employment rate. Last year, the employment rate for women in their 20s was 58.7 percent. The figure dropped to 53.7 percent for those in their 30s, while it shot up to 64.9 percent for women in their 40s.

This pattern implies that any scheme to narrow the gender pay gap should include measures aimed at helping female workers balance work and family. More than anything else, the government should make high-quality child care services more affordable and available.

It should also lengthen maternity leave from the present 90 days and ensure that employees can freely take maternity and parental leave. Encouraging corporations to make greater use of performance-based pay would also help.

These measures will not only increase the wages of working women but, more importantly, boost the female labor force participation rate.

For Korea, raising the female participation rate is a matter of great urgency as its working-age population is forecast to peak in 2016. The share of the working-age people in the total population has already started to fall.

If a nation’s working-age population shrinks, labor input drops, which impairs its growth potential. This risk is especially great for Korea as its pace of population aging is among the fastest in the world.

The Korean economy could be caught in a low-growth trap unless measures are taken to curb a rapid shrinkage of the labor force. The best strategy to cope with this demographic risk is to encourage more women to join the labor force.