IMAGE AWARENESS

Companies' concern for their corporate image and attention to diversity are beginning to grow though, and some are undertaking pioneering initiatives. For instance, Samsung SDS set a 40 percent quota for female new hires in 2004 and established a women's network to promote women's status in the company. The company's goal is for women to make up 50 percent of the workforce and fill 35 percent of mid- and upper-management positions by 2010.

The low participation of women in leadership and decision-making positions in Korean society is accurately reflected in the nation's rank on the United Nations Development Program's Gender Empowerment Measure. According to the 2004 measure, Korea was sixty-eighth out of the seventy-eight countries ranked.

This measure reveals women's political participation and decision-making power (calculated by comparing women's and men's percentage shares of parliamentary seats), economic participation and decision-making power (comparing women's and men's percentage shares of positions as legislators, senior officials, and managers and their shares of professional and technical positions), and power over economic resources (comparing women's and men's estimated earned incomes).