Women only accounted for 2.3 percent of all high-ranking executives at South Korea’s 100 major conglomerates last year, while more than half of the firms did not have any women in top leadership positions, a government report showed on Thursday.

The report, compiled by the Gender Ministry, analyzed the nation’s top 100 companies with the biggest sales as of last year. Only 165 women were working in the top leadership positions including executives and board members.
By company, Citibank Korea topped the chart with almost a quarter (23.5 percent) of its executive positions being filled by women. Industrial Bank of Korea came in second with 15.8 percent, and KB Kookmin Bank followed with 10.5 percent. Among the firms that made the top 10 list, five of them were banks, including Standard Chartered Bank (14.3 percent) and Woori Bank (8.3 percent).

Other firms on the top 10 list included the Samsung Electro-Mechanics (14.3 percent), CJ Cheiljedang (8.3 percent) and Lotte Hotels and Resorts (7.1 percent).

While the proportion of women in top leadership positions is still very small, there have been improvements compared to 2013, according to the ministry. The number of women in top managerial positions in major companies increased from 117 to 165, while the number of companies with at least one woman in a top position also increased from 35 to 48.

According to the latest OECD data, South Korea has the highest gender wage gap among the developed nations at 36.6 percent. The OECD average is 15.46 percent.

By Claire Lee(dyc@heraldcorp.com)