Engineers and Korea

Abstract

“My competitive advantage against other women colleagues” lies in in the extent to which “I [am] an employee who … diligently work[s] to improve the productivity of the company, not as a housewife or mother.” So said in 2014 an engineer who had achieved the status of managing director for a major electric power company. Having earned her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Seoul National University, she elaborated that she had spent “most of my available time ‘improving my performance’ so I can be recognized as an expert.” She had to do her best, she said, because “my company fairly pays me for what I do for it.”