Korea's fixed-term problem is a consent problem, and an allowance does not fix it

Workplace Gapjil 119, a South Korean labor rights group, reported on the 16th that 80.4 percent of workers surveyed believe fixed-term employees face discrimination compared with permanent employees ^[1]. In the same survey, 48.4 percent said the government's proposed "fairness allowance" would not resolve wage gaps, and fewer than half thought it would reduce wage discrimination at all ^[3].

The survey was commissioned to the polling firm Global Research and covered 1,000 workers aged 19 and older nationwide between June 1 and 7 ^[2].

The distribution matters more than the headline number. Temporary workers, the people closest to the arrangement, reported the highest perception of discrimination at 84.6 percent ^[4]. Perception also climbs with every decade of age: 72.1 percent among workers in their 20s, 78.2 percent in their 30s, 79.8 percent in their 40s and 86.5 percent in their 50s ^[5][17]. That is a spread of 14.4 percentage points between the youngest and oldest bands ^[6], and it is the shape of a belief formed by exposure rather than by cohort attitude.

The second finding is the one an allowance cannot reach. Some 65.6 percent said fixed-term workers cannot freely use maternity leave or parental leave, or file workplace harassment reports ^[7], and 64.2 percent said joining or forming a union is not free ^[8]. That rights figure sits only about 15 points below the 80.4 percent who see discrimination at all ^[16], so most people who see a pay problem also see a rights problem. Women, workers in unstable employment, employees at small workplaces, low-wage workers, non-union members and older workers were the most likely to say those rights are hard to exercise ^[10]. Gapjil 119 said it had received reports of fixed-term workers being verbally abused over their appearance or educational background, threatened with non-renewal, blocked from taking maternity leave, and denied written employment contracts ^[11]. The group called the issue "a structural problem that goes beyond a simple wage gap and makes it hard for workers to assert their rights" ^[12].

An allowance is a transfer. It can narrow a measured pay differential; it cannot make a worker on a renewable contract willing to file a harassment complaint against the manager who decides whether the contract is renewed. On the survey's own arithmetic, neither view of the allowance commands a majority ^[15], which is a weak starting position for a policy whose intended beneficiaries are the ones being polled. For employers, the practical consequence is that a cash line item will not buy back consent from a workforce that reports it cannot use statutory leave.

Watch the special law on the designation and management of mega special zones. Gapjil 119 has called for its withdrawal because it would extend the maximum employment period for fixed-term workers from the current two years to four ^[13], doubling the stretch of time in which non-renewal sits over the worker as an implicit threat ^[14]. If that extension advances while the allowance is the only offsetting measure, the pay gap becomes the least interesting part of the file. Also watch whether the allowance's design attaches any condition to leave usage, harassment reporting or union access; if it does not, the 65.6 and 64.2 percent figures should be expected to survive it intact ^[7][8].