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Statistics concerned shows that complaints about age discrimination made to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea since the enforcement of the Korea Age Discrimination in Employment Act (KADEA) in 2009 are mainly concerned with recruitment, the practice of which in companies of Korea has been to explicitly put age limit on applicants for jobs. The actual confinement of the law to this kind of age discrimination in relation to recruitment leads us to ask why other age-related discriminatory practices in companies of Korea have not been addressed despite their prevalence in the Korean workplace. By means of comparison between the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations (EEAR) 2006 of the UK and the KADEA, this article finds out three main features that probably give rise to the current state of the latter. The first is that whilst the proportionality test is used to objectively justify seemingly discriminatory treatment (in the case of direct discrimination) or a provision, criterion, practice putting persons of a particular at a particular disadvantage (in the case of indirect discrimination) in the EEAR 2006, the reasonableness test is provided for in the KADEA. The latter test is not as strict as the former test and accordingly directly or indirectly discriminatory practices are more likely to be justified. A redundancy case in which the Korean Supreme Court held that to use an age criterion to select those to be redundant was reasonable and accordingly justified shows that similar practices are to be justified under the KADEA. The second feature is concerned with indirect discrimination. In the UK, the provision of indirect discrimination is taken to require employers to objectively justify an age-related criterion, such as the length of service, as several cases shows although the EEAR 2006 weakens the prohibition of indirect age discrimination by exempting the criteria of length of service less than five years and allowing it to be used where it appears reasonable to employers that the way it is used fulfills a business need of their undertaking. However, to use the criteria of length of service is explicitly exempted under the provision of indirect discrimination of the KADEA. There has been no case in relation to indirect age discrimination. Thirdly, Korea's regulatory framework in which setting compulsory retirement age does not require any justification at all is contrasted with that of UK's default retirement age of 65 in which setting a retirement age under 65 must be objectively justified. Thus, the issue of compulsory retirement age is hardly within the scope of the KADEA. This is rather surprising given that, as the controversy on the default retirement age before the enactment of EEAR 2006 shows, one of the principal purposes of introducing age discrimination law is to raise, or remove, a retirement age, thus making people work longer. Just two years have passed since the enforcement of the KADEA. Despite this, this article concludes that it is doubtful that the KADEA, without its major defects above corrected by further amendment, will play an meaningful role as it was intented to. It is far from tackling discriminatory practices in relation to age, such as hidden age limit on recruitment, and economic dismissal on the grounds of age. In addition, it hardly regulates an retirement age in Korea which is rapidly nearing aged society from aging society.
