[Yonhap]
[Yonhap]

Female workers in South Korea earn on average about 1.55 million won less per month than their male counterparts. More than half of women take home less than 3 million won ($2,180) a month, while more than one in three men earns 5 million won or more. South Korea's gender pay gap stands at roughly three times the OECD average.

The Korean Women's Development Institute released the findings Monday, on the occasion of Gender Equality Week, drawing on its "2026 Gender Statistics of Korea" to analyze wage disparities in the domestic labor market.

According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor's Survey on Labor Conditions by Employment Type, the monthly average wage for workers at businesses with one or more employees in 2024 was 4.4 million won for men and 2.85 million won for women. Women's wages amounted to 64.8 percent of men's, a monthly gap of 1.55 million won.

57% of women earn under 3 million won; only 14.5% reach 5 million

Breaking down wages by bracket makes the disparity even sharper. Among workers at businesses with five or more employees, 57.1 percent of women earned less than 3 million won a month, compared with 25.1 percent of men.

At the upper end, 37.2 percent of men earned 5 million won or more per month, while the share among women was limited to 14.5 percent — a gap of 22.7 percentage points.

Women's share of the total workforce also shrank as wage levels rose. Women accounted for 70.7 percent of workers earning less than 2 million won a month and 57.8 percent of those in the 2 million to 3 million won range.

Their share fell to 38.0 percent in the 3 million to 4 million won bracket, dropped further to 28.1 percent in the 4 million to 5 million won range, and was limited to 21.1 percent among those earning 5 million won or more.

Women in health and social welfare earn 54% of men's wages

Gaps varied widely by industry. In the health and social welfare services sector, women's average monthly wage was 2.73 million won — 2.33 million won less than the male average of 5.06 million won. Women's wages in the sector amounted to just 54.0 percent of men's, the lowest ratio among all industries surveyed.

This does not mean, however, that men and women doing the same work are paid differently. Even within a single industry, men and women tend to work in different occupations and at different seniority levels, with varying lengths of service and working hours — all of which feed into the average wage figures.

Women's wages as a share of men's stood at 67.7 percent in the associations, repair and other personal services sector, 68.2 percent in education services, 69.5 percent in manufacturing and 69.7 percent in wholesale and retail trade. The transportation and warehousing sector showed a relatively smaller gap, at 93.3 percent.

By occupation, the gap was most pronounced in sales and service roles. Women in sales earned 60.4 percent of what men in the same category made, while women in service occupations earned 61.2 percent. Even among professionals and related workers, the figure stood at only 63.0 percent.

The gap was comparatively smaller for managers, where women's wages reached 84.7 percent of men's, and for elementary workers, at 79.9 percent.

Korea's gender pay gap at 29% — nearly 3 times the OECD average

South Korea's gender pay gap remains among the highest in international comparisons.

According to OECD data, South Korea's gender pay gap stood at 29.0 percent in 2024, about 2.9 times the OECD member-country average of 10.1 percent. Last year the gap narrowed slightly to 27.8 percent, but the disparity remained wide.

Women also make up a disproportionate share of low-wage workers. In 2024, 23.8 percent of female workers in South Korea were classified as low-wage earners, 6.9 percentage points above the OECD average of 16.9 percent. Low-wage workers are defined as full-time employees whose hourly pay falls below two-thirds of the median wage.

The Korean Women's Development Institute said the gender pay gap reflects not simply a difference in average wages between men and women, but a complex interplay of factors — including women's concentration in low-wage jobs, the distribution of employment across industries and occupations, and the overall structure of the labor market.

"The gender pay gap is not merely a matter of the difference in average wages between women and men," said Kim Jong-suk, president of the Korean Women's Development Institute. "It requires us to look at what kinds of jobs women and men hold in the labor market and what opportunities they are given."

The government is moving in stages to introduce an employment equality disclosure system that would require companies to make public their wage and hiring data by gender. The Korean Women's Development Institute plans to support the rollout by preparing legislative reference materials, an operational manual and a business support framework.

Given that the gender pay gap has persisted for so long, analysts say future efforts must go beyond tracking average wage differences to examine the structural causes — including women's representation by occupation and seniority level, career interruptions, length of service and promotion opportunities.


rainbow@heraldcorp.com