How to get better talent for cheap!

In a recent Economist article, it was reported that educated South Korean women are the most underemployed women in OECD countries. Working S. Korean women make 63% of what working S. Korean men do. Luckily, the article reported, wise employers can take advantage of this situation and poach/hire the slew of female talent that is coming out of the heavily meritocratic Korean school system.

"The workplace may be sexist, but the education system is extremely meritocratic. Lots of brainy female graduates enter the job market each year. In time their careers are eclipsed by those of men of no greater ability. This makes them poachable. Goldman Sachs, an American investment bank, has more women than men in its office in Seoul."

But what does this really mean for women in business? Employers who take advantage of systemic oppression, like wide-spread gender discrimination, are not considering the "social" side of the triple bottom line. Just because you can pay someone less doesn't mean you should. 


I've heard the argument (argued to my face by one student at BGI who shall remain nameless) that the gender pay-gap is a "good" thing for women because it makes women "more hirable" if employers can get away with paying them less. Great, so I've got a job but I'm locked into a lower salary history, I can barely feed my family, and my retirement fund will be lower (which really sucks because I'm likely going to outlive all the men in my life). See, the pay gap is actually a bad bad baaaad thing when you look at the whole system (aside from focusing on the self-esteem issues that come out of being made to feel as if you don't count, are a second class citizen and exploited labor).


Stepping back and looking at the entire system, when women are paid less than men, so too are their families which becomes critical if their families are single-mother single-income households. This of course, impacts the children who will grow up and inherit our society (and businesses).

The Economist frames gender discrimination in S. Korea as a good thing for non-discriminatory competitors who know good talent when they see it and don't care if the candidate is a woman. There was no mention that these women were getting paid more at these foreign companies. I took the assumption that they weren't.  But in earnest, the whole practice reminded me a lot of outsourcing to cheaper sweatshop labor because you can get a better margin!

"If female talent is undervalued, it should be plentiful and relatively cheap. Firms that hire more women should reap a competitive advantage."

Now how is this point of view bettering our world? Just because you're hiring women, doesn't mean you're not discriminating against them.