South Korea's public sector gender pay gap falls below 20% for first time

The gender pay gap at South Korea’s public institutions fell below 20 percent for the first time last year, although the disparity remained considerably wider among thousands of companies, government data showed Monday.

Women earned a median average of 72.16 million won ($53,900) at the 3,146 companies analyzed, compared to 102.03 million won for men, putting the gap at 29.3 percent.

The gap narrowed by 1.4 percentage points from 30.7 percent a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.

The companies are those whose assets are large enough to require information disclosure, and jobs there are relatively well paid. The national average median salary for Korea is 38 million won-42 million won, according to 2026 Labor Ministry figures.

At 355 public institutions, women earned an average of 60.56 million won, 19 percent less than the 74.79 million won earned by men.

The gap fell by 1 percentage point from the previous year, marking the first time it had dropped below 20 percent since the ministry began publishing the statistics in 2020.

The ministry’s 2025 Gender Pay Statistics covered companies required to submit annual business reports through the Financial Supervisory Service’s DART system and public institutions listed on the government’s ALIO disclosure portal.

The size of the corporate pay gap varied widely by industry. Wholesale and retail recorded the widest gap at 42.29 percent, closely followed by construction at 42.26 percent.

The smallest gaps were found in accommodation and food services at 14.2 percent and arts, sports and recreation-related services at 15.6 percent.

The gap narrowed most sharply in accommodation and food services, falling by 3.5 percentage points, followed by manufacturing with a decline of 2.4 percentage points.

By contrast, it widened by 4.3 percentage points in agriculture, forestry and fisheries and by 1.3 percentage points in education services.

The ministry attributed the disparities to factors including occupational segregation, career interruptions, differences in length of service and barriers preventing women from advancing to senior positions.

The government plans to introduce an employment equality disclosure system requiring companies to report gender differences in employment and pay by occupation, rank and employment type.

“The narrowing of the gender pay gap at companies subject to disclosure and public institutions is a positive change, but substantial disparities remain,” Gender Equality and Family Minister Won Min-kyong said.

Despite the gradual improvement, Korea continues to have the widest overall gender wage gap among member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Separate OECD data put Korea’s gap at 29 percent in 2024, compared to 16.5 percent in Canada, 10.7 percent in Australia and 7.5 percent in Sweden. Korea's gap was about 2.8 times the OECD average in the same year, which stood at 10.1 percent.

The OECD figures are based on median monthly earnings and are separate from the ministry’s analysis of average annual pay.