South Korean Gender Minister Kang Eun-hee stressed the importance of information technology in achieving gender equality during a meeting of gender and economic development officials in the Asia Pacific region held from Monday to Thursday in Lima, Peru.

“I believe that an increasing number of women will enter the information, communication and technology industry, as more girls are majoring in science and technology,” Kang said in a meeting held during the APEC Women and the Technology Forum. “The ICT industry, unlike others, also largely demands a sense of creativity, diversity and sensitivity unique to women.”

This year’s forum was attended by women ministers and other senior officials from 21 countries, under the motto “Breaking barriers to integration of women in the global market.”
 

Many studies at home and abroad have been showing that gender disparity is prevalent in South Korea. Last year, the country ranked 115th out of 145 nations on gender equality, according to the World Economic Forum. The women’s employment rate here remained at 49.9 percent last year.

Having worked as an IT businesswoman many years prior to stepping into politics in 2012, Kang emphasized that South Korea has been making continuous efforts to provide training programs for unemployed women who wish to work in the nation’s ICT industry.

In 2015, the Korean government established a special support center for women who are seeking employment specifically in the ICT field, which provides courses on JAVA programming, data management and computer-aided drafting. 

“South Korea’s Ministry of Gender Equality runs professional training courses on ICT at the Women’s reemployment Center, such as ICT electric fusion technology and web designing,” said Kang. 

While women’s employment remains low here, South Korean women are some of the most educated in the world. Last year, more girls (74.6 percent) enrolled in post-secondary education than boys (67.6 percent).

Minister Kang also stressed that female students accounted for 21.9 percent of all Korean engineering students in post-secondary education institutes last year, which was the highest figure in the nation’s history.

Kang nevertheless acknowledged the existing gender disparity in the particular field, pointing out that female workers only accounted for 26. 9 percent of the entire 1.63 million ICT professionals in Korea in 2014.

“We encourage more women to start their own business,” she said. “Our focus is to nature career-interrupted women into professionals through collaborative partnerships with women business associations.”



By Claire Lee (dyc@heraldcorp.com)