When it comes to E-2 visa-holders, women now outnumber men

In my previous post I looked at immigration statistics for E-2s from 1993 to present, as depicted in this graph:

Year end immigration statistics can be found here. Actually, the 2004 figure above, of 11,344, is incorrect. The correct figure is 10,862, meaning that E-2 numbers plateaued (and even decreased slightly) from 2002 to 2004.

Here are the figures from 1993 to 2015 broken down by gender:

Year - Total  (Male / Female)

1993 - 1,136  (775 / 351)
1994 - 2,241  (1,471 / 770)
1995 - 4,230  (2,593 / 1,637)
1996 - 7,473  (4,413 / 3,060)
1997 - 7,607  (4,567 / 3,040)
1998 - 4,927  (3,231 / 1,696)
1999 - 5,009  (3,334 / 1,675)
2000 - 6,414  (4,091 / 2,323)
2001 - 8,388  (5,289 / 3,099)
2002 - 10,864  (6,672 / 4,192)
2003 - 10,822  (6,714 / 4,108)
2004 - 10,862  (6,636 / 4,226)
2005 - 12,439  (7,502 / 4,937)
2006 - 15,001  (8,992 / 6,009)
2007 - 17,721  (10,399 / 7,322)
2008 - 19,771  (11,223 / 8,548)
2009 - 22,642  (12,739 / 9,903)
2010 - 23,317  (12,887 / 10,430)
2011 - 22,541  (12,375 / 10,166)
2012 - 21,603  (11,382 / 10,221)
2013 - 20,030  (10,509 / 9,521)
2014 - 17,949  (9,074 / 8,875)
2015 - 16,144  (7,883 / 8,261)
2016 - 15,450 (7,225 / 8,225)
2017 - 14,352 (6,429 / 7,923)
2018.11 - 13,932 (5,868 / 8,064)

Here are these figures depicted in a graph:

What you notice is that not only have the number of female teachers decreased far more slowly that male teachers (in fact, in 2012, male teachers decreased by almost 1,000, while female teachers increased by 55), but in 2015, for the first time, female teachers outnumbered male teachers on E-2 visas.

Considering ads by the ministry of education in different locals (such as Seoul or Daegu, the source of images below), and the fact that female teachers are highlighted, it's perhaps not that surprising.

Private education companies have leaned in this direction as well:

"English that you learn while enjoying yourself."

"More fun than an American drama! More exciting than a (Western) pop song!"

Recruiters Job and Consulting (whose ads I've looked at before: 1, 2, 3) also primarily used stock images of blue-eyed women in its advertisements:



The media has in the past portrayed male teachers (and soldiers) as potential predators, while portraying female teachers as sex objects (and so more desirable), as I looked at in depth here. Whether that is influencing this demographic shift I have no idea, but it may have influenced the choice of women in the PR/advertising images above. In terms of numbers, as public school hiring has dropped over the past 5 years (along with hagwon hiring as well), the number of male teachers has dropped by 5,000, while the number of female teachers have dropped by only 2,100. Whatever the reason for this, it's interesting to see the a gender balance that has been in place since the 1980s (especially so, back then, when most teachers either came from a military background or discovered Korea while they were travelling around Asia) change the way it has.