Women occupy larger share of South Korea’s chaebol leadership
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Women account for 37 per cent of executives within South Korea’s family-controlled conglomerates.
PHOTO: UNSPLASH
SEOUL – Women are taking on a larger share of management roles within South Korea’s conglomerate-controlling families, known as chaebols, now accounting for 37 per cent of executives and showing stronger representation among the next generation, a corporate tracker reported.
CEO Score said on Feb 25 that among 81 conglomerates with at least 5 trillion won (S$4.4 billion) in assets, 370 members of their ownership families were serving in management as at January. Of those, 137 were women.
The data shows a more pronounced shift among younger heirs. In the “parent generation”, 70 out of 202 executives were women, or 34.7 per cent, while in the younger generation, women accounted for 39.9 per cent, or 67 out of 168.
The report classified the parent generation as those in the same generation as the organisation’s current owner in 2025. Ownership families included immediate family, first cousins and relatives by marriage within the immediate uncle-aunt-nephew-niece range.
Among spouses of conglomerate heads, 42.6 per cent were serving in executive roles.
The gender composition also varied by asset size. Women made up 31.8 per cent of owner-family executives at the top 50 groups, while the bottom 40 showed a higher share at 42.9 per cent.
At 25 conglomerates, women accounted for less than a quarter of owner-family executives. Nineteen had no women at all in such roles, including Hanhwa, the country’s seventh-largest group by assets, and major internet platform operator Naver. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
