In South Korea, gender inequality is derived from deeply rooted patriarchal ideologies with specifically defined gender-roles. While it remains especially prevalent in South Korea's economy and politics, gender inequality has decreased in healthcare and education.
Gender statistics.
Due to the various methods of calculating and measuring gender inequality, South Korea's gender inequality rankings vary across different reports. While the 2017 UNDP Gender Inequality Index ranks South Korea 10th out of 160 countries, the World Economic Forum ranks South Korea 118th out of 144 countries in its 2017 Global Gender Gap Report. In their 2013 study, Branisa et al. explain that indices like the Global Gender Gap Index tend to be "outcome-focused", which means they focus on gender inequalities in agency and in well-being.
Indices like the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) focus on the origins of gender inequalities, such as laws and norms. South Korea is one of three OECD countries that did not receive a perfect SIGI score. While the SIGI did not give South Korea an overall ranking, the country was reported to have very low levels of discriminatory family code, low levels of restricted civil liberties, and medium levels of restricted resources and assets.
In 2010, 93% of South Koreans surveyed believed women should have equal rights to men, and among them, 71% believe more changes are needed before that goal is achieved.
The 2017 report notes that all subindices (health and survival, education, economic participation and equality, and political empowerment) show improvement compared to 2006 (the date of the first publication of this yearly report). In comparison to other countries, South Korea scores highest on Health and Survival (84th), then Political Empowerment (90th), then Educational Attainment (105th), and ranks the lowest on Economic Participation and Equality (121st).
Korea ranks 114th in college enrollment, with 111 percent for men and 85 percent for women. There is a strange conclusion that 111 out of 100 Korean men go to college. Taking a leave of absence without leaving school is also treated as a university education period, because it is common to take a leave of absence during the military period, which increases the education period. Women can take a leave of absence even if they are not in the military, so there is a slight gap from the reality (74% male and 75% female).
History.
Gender inequality in South Korea is largely rooted in the country's Confucian ideals and has been perpetuated and deepened by historical practices and events, such as Japanese forced sex slavery and Park Geun-Hye's scandal. However, contemporary South Korea has made great strides in attempting to reduce gender inequality through legislation and policymaking.
Confucianism.
Confucianism is a socio-political philosophy and belief system that has had a long-standing influence on South Korean society. It was first brought to Korea in the fourth century and Neo-Confucianism was chosen as the national ideology during the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910).
Confucianism is an ideology that emphasises the importance of a social hierarchy in order to create a balanced and harmonious society. This hierarchy is illustrated through the Five Relationships, a key teaching in Confucianism that describes the main basic relationships between people as follows; ruler and ruled, father and son, husband and wife, elder brother and younger brother and friend and friend.
The roles in each relationship were also prescribed individual duties which, for husband and wife, involved the husband acting as the bread-winner for the family while the wife was to stay at home, raise the children and maintain the household. The Three Bonds are an extension of these relationships that later appeared in Confucian literature and emphasise the hierarchical nature of the relationships as follows; the ruler over the ruled, the father over the son and the husband over the wife. This core Confucian principle emphasises a woman's role as subservient to her husband.
Another key teaching in Confucian literature that directly influences the subjugation of women are the Three Obediences and the Four Virtues, guidelines that describe how a woman should behave in society. The Three Obediences require that women "obey the father before the marriage, obey the husband after marriage, and obey the first son after the death of the husband" while The Four Virtues require "(sexual) morality, proper speech, modest manner, and diligent work".
The Joseon dynasty saw a particular shift in gender roles as society transitioned from Buddhist to Confucian ideals. This resulted in the systems of marriage and kinship becoming patrilineal rather than matrilineal. As a husband's role was deemed superior to that of the wife, men not only had control over inheritance matters, but "the right to grant a divorce was limited to the state and the husbands themselves". Husbands were able to grant a divorce base on the Seven Sins for women or "chilgeojiak" (칠거지악); "disobeying one's parents-in-law, failure to produce a male heir, adultery, excessive jealousy towards other women in the household, serious disease, stealing, and talking excessively".
Wartime Forced Sex Slavery.
During World War II, thousands of young Korean women (Japanese citizens at that time) were forcibly recruited to work as prostitutes or "comfort women" by contracts with Korean brothels to serve for the Japanese Imperial Army. 
Kim Hak Sun stated an officer harmed and threatened her by saying that she would be killed if she did not obey him. She was then brutally raped. Together with other 4 young Korean women, she had to be a "hygienic tool used by Japanese soldiers to satisfy their sexual desire." In the comfort station, the victims aged between 17 and 22 had to deal with about 7 to 8 Japanese soldiers a day in small rooms that were separated from one another by cloth. Lee Yong-soo was sixteen when she was forced to become a comfort woman. She recalls that on average, she was forced into sexual relations with four to five men a day and did not have any rest even when she was menstruating. She also says that she "suffered electrical torture, was beaten and was cut by a soldier's knife." She learned to submit, not wanting to be shocked or beaten again.
Kim Bok-dong at age 14~15 in 1941, and her mother were lied to by Japanese authorities; Kim Bok-dong was told that she was to support the war efforts by working in a military clothing factory and would return in three years. If not, her family would be considered traitors. The Japanese authorities demanded that her mother, who could not read, sign a document. Her mother conceded to the demand, believing that her daughter would work in a factory in Japan. Instead, she was put into militarized sexual slavery in Japanese occupied territories for eight years, including Guangdong, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Kim Bok-dong was raped every day, especially from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays. Many Koreans view these as atrocities and raise money for charities including many celebrities 
Legislation.
After the democratization of Korea, the number of feminist movements greatly increased. The Korean government began to address gender equality issues in the late 20th century with the following legislative acts:
In 2005, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family was established and the patrilineal family register (hoju) was abolished. While gender equality in policymaking and governance has improved over the last few decades, gender equality in labor markets and the division of labor has remained stagnant.
Park Geun-hye.
Although women gained the rights to vote and run for election in 1948, women have historically been underrepresented in South Korean politics. When Park Geun-hye became South Korea's first female president in 2012, many viewed her election as a victory for gender equality in South Korea. Four years later, her scandal and impeachment nullified any progress made by her election and left many convinced that women are not fit to lead their country. Many experts were also skeptical about watching Park Geun-hye as a female politician, saying she used her gender as an opportunity to influence conservative politics, and attempted to involve gender issues into seemingly unrelated political debates.
Professional inequality.
The professional inequality in South Korea is atypically high among developed countries. This type of inequality can be seen in statistics concerning South Korea's wage gap, employment rates, occupational segregation, and parental leave.
Wage gap.
In their 2001 article about gender differences in earnings among South Korean workers in 1988, Monk-Turner and Turner report that "all else equal, men earn from 33.6 percent to 46.9 percent more than women with comparable skills." In 2017, the OECD placed Korea in the last position of all OECD countries for gender pay gap, a position that has not improved since the OECD first published this ranking in 2000. The gender pay gap in Korea is 34.6%, while the OECD average is 13.1%.
The gap has improved by 7% since 2000, though the rate of improvement has been slower than in other OECD countries. The Korean gender pay gap has been called "the worst... among the industrialized countries." Korea also ranked the lowest for the eighth year in a row on the Glass Ceiling Index published by "The Economist" in 2020. The Glass Ceiling Index was determined by the country's performance on ten indicators such as wage gap, labor force participation, representation in senior jobs, paid maternity leave, etc.
Employment.
Women tend to occupy low-paying, non-regular jobs and are less likely to be promoted to higher managerial positions in the workplace; however, employment opportunities for women in South Korea have steadily increased in the past few decades. Before the Korean War, the employment rate of women was less than 30%. In their 2018 Economic Survey for Korea, the OECD recorded the female employment rate to be around 56.1%, which is below the average (59.3%) for all OECD countries. The male employment rate is 75.9%, which is slightly higher than the OECD average (74.7%).
In their 2013 paper, Patterson and Walcutt found that gender inequality in the workplace stems from "a lack of legal enforcement, a weak punishment system, a tacit acceptance of the status quo by women, organizational cultural issues stemming from the traditional Korean mind-set that allow gender discrimination and a general lack of knowledge about EO [equal opportunity] regulations by many companies."
In addition to the societal and familial expectations of women to be primary caregivers, the OECD report explains that "women tend to withdraw from the labour force once they have children, in part due to shortages of high quality early childhood education and care institutions." During the 1970s and 1980s, women left the workforce at a very "early stage in family formation." Currently, they are leaving the workforce later, usually right before or during their pregnancy. May notes that this trend could be due to women's growing financial independence.
According to the World Economic Forum, South Korea is placed at number 124 out of 149 countries in the world in regards of economic participation and opportunity for women. Women are often faced with questions regarding their marriage status, or whether they are planning to have children when applying for a job, and are even prompted with suggestions that jobs in "male dominated" fields aren't appropriate for them.
Occupational segregation.
Despite the rising employment rate for women, the labor force in Korea is still highly segregated by gender, marked by full-time employment gender share and industrial differences. In 2017, women in Korea made up 39.5% of the full-time employment population, in contrast to the 62.7% gender share in part-time employment. The relatively high part-time employment rate for women can partly be attributed to traditional Confucian ideals of gender roles in Korea, in which women are expected to take on the responsibility of family duties and childcare. Part-time employment allows for reconciliation of professional and family life, especially for women, as explained in a 2002 OECD Employment Outlook analysis.
In addition to differences in full- and part-time employment rates, gender inequality in Korea also manifests itself through industrial segregation. In a 1994 article, Monk-Turner and Turner observed that "farming and production absorbed 66.3 percent of all women workers," and "another 29 percent of all women work as clerical, sales, or service workers." In 2017, according to statistics from the International Labour Organization, agricultural sector employment had shrunk to around 5% for both men and women; 82.1% of women workers were concentrated in the service sector, with 11.5% in manufacturing and 1.4% in construction, in contrast to men with 61.9% in services, 20.8% in manufacturing, and 11.2% in construction.
In two decades, aside from the national trend of sectoral-shift