Entrepreneurship allows women to avoid sexism in South Korea

See Blocked in Business, South Korean Women Start Their Own: Glass ceilings in a conservative country’s biggest companies have motivated a new generation of female entrepreneurs by Michael Schuman of The NY Times. Excerpts:

"At first glance, Energy Nomad appears to be a typical South Korean company: Just about everybody who works there is male.

Crusty engineers, mostly in their 40s and dressed in matching dark jackets and black pants, hover over its production lines in a factory outside Seoul, or work at nearby desks. The sole exception is one young women, who deferentially bows her head as a senior manager directs her into a meeting room.

But at this start-up, looks can be deceiving. The lone woman, Park Hye-rin, is the boss. She founded Energy Nomad in 2014.

“I may be able to encourage the next generation of women” said Ms. Park, 33. “More young women might join me in this community of the future.”

Ms. Park is one of a new wave of Korean women who are starting their own companies. Frustrated in their climb up the corporate ladder in a male-dominated business culture, they choose to find another way up.

“In education we are equal to men, but after we enter into the traditional companies, they underestimate and undervalue women,” said Park Hee-eun, principal at the venture-capital firm Altos Ventures in Seoul. “Women are disappointed with the working culture, so they want to make their own companies.”

In 2018, more than 12 percent of working-age women in South Korea were involved in starting or managing new companies — those less than three and a half years old — a sharp increase from 5 percent just two years earlier, according to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. In Japan, where women face similar biases, only 4 percent are starting companies. 

Similarly, a Mastercard report on 57 global economies last year said that South Korea showed the most progress in advancing female entrepreneurs, and that more women than men had become engaged in start-ups. Government statistics also show that a rising percentage of new companies, about a quarter, were started by women last year. 

The trend could reshape a corporate world where discrimination against women is deeply entrenched. South Korea has been a marvel of economic progress over the past 50 years, transforming from one of the world’s poorest countries into an industrial powerhouse famous for its microchips and smartphones. But notions of women’s role in society have changed slowly, often trapping them in poorly paid jobs with little chance of advancement.

Only about 10 percent of managerial positions in South Korea are held by women, the lowest among the countries studied by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, while the gap in pay between men and women is the widest.

These biases infect the start-up sector, too. Building a new enterprise is a risky endeavor in any circumstances, but South Korean women often are not taken seriously by male bankers, executives or even employees. 

“You have to put extra effort into being a female entrepreneur,” said Kim Min-kyung, founder of a personalized lingerie company, Luxbelle.

Ms. Kim, 35, was undeterred. By the usual standards of success in South Korea, she had already made it big, landing jobs at affiliates of the Samsung business group, among the most coveted positions in the country.

But she felt unappreciated within Samsung’s bureaucracy. Though Ms. Kim never faced overt discrimination there, she said, she also knew she would eventually smack into a very low glass ceiling. 

“I thought I would not have a future as a woman at a more traditional company,” Ms. Kim said. “I thought I would not get a top position, so I had to go out and start my own business, sooner rather than later.” 

A start-up, she added, “is my company, and I can do whatever I want.”"