동아시아 국가의 고용차별금지법 비교 ― 한국, 일본, 대만을 중심으로 ―

This article aims at comparatively analyzing anti-discrimination law in S. Korea, Japan and Taiwan. These countries introduced employment discrimination law from the West and have developed their own law and legal theory of discrimination law. Unlike S. Korea and Japan, Taiwanese law prohibits differential treatment based on both sex and sexual orientation. This illustrates that equal right of gay and lesbian employee becomes high profile issue in Eastern Asia. Enactment of indirect discrimination in S. Korea and Japan is another huge improvement. However, there has been no Court decision clearing the concept of this new theory in S. Korea. Considering the difficulty of applying this new concept, Japanese law limits the coverage of indirect discrimination. Therefore indirect discrimination clause can be applied only to discrimination in recruitment and hiring. Both S.Korea and Taiwan law state the principle of equal pay for equal value work. Japanese law has not introduced this comparable worth principle yet. However, these countries have difficulty with ruling wage inequality. As wage system in Eastern Asia is usally not a job value based system, it is not easy for women plaintiff to prove equal value of their job with a comparator's job. This suggests that it is necessary to support job valuing system for the purpose of wage equality. Taiwanese law is different from the other two countries' law in that it provides legal aid service to discrimination suit claimant. This legal aid can be a good starting point to substantially implement the anti-discrimination law.