A comparison of the salaries of 4.59 million women registered with the National Health Insurance Corporation shows that women in their 30s make W2.26 million (US$1=W1,131) a month on average, the most among salaried women. And one out of every 11 working women in their 30s makes more than W4 million a month.
Next are women in their 40s with W2.08 million a month, in their 50s and 20s with W1.88 million, and in their 60s with W1.44 million.
The reason why 30-somethings earn the most is because the majority of female doctors, lawyers, accountants and other high-paying jobs are from that age group. Women began working for major business conglomerates or as doctors or lawyers in the late 1980s, but it was not until the late 1990s that they made up a significant force in those fields.
Now women account for 22 percent of doctors in Korea, and 60 percent of them are in their 20s and 30s. The situation is the same for women lawyers, where 77.6 percent are in their 20s and 30s. As they grow older, more of them will earn six-figure salaries.
Government jobs, where the genders are relatively equal, are also seeing a growing influx of women. Among government workers in their 40s, men far outnumber women, but among 30-somethings women outnumber men by 180,000 to 170,000. The gap is even bigger among government workers in their 20s, where 110,000 are women and just 40,000 men.
But among some 28,600 women who make six-figure salaries, those in their 40s account for the largest number with 11,600, followed by those in their 30s with 7,900. This is because many highly-paid insurance saleswomen are in their 40s.
Prof. Kim Won-shik of Konkuk University said, "There are still only a small handful of women who have made it to top management positions in major business conglomerates, but a lot of women in their 30s work in middle management, so we will see a major shift in wage patterns in the next 10 years."
A disproportionately large number of women work in poorly paid jobs. Among the 2.13 million workers who earn less than W1 million a month, 1.22 million are women. A growing number of women work for low wages to make money to support their children's education or to supplement their husband's salaries. Most low-paid female workers are in their 40s, followed by women in their 50s and 30s.
