Men earn 1.6 times higher wages than women in South Korea

Male workers hired in listed companies in South Korea have been found to earn 1.6 times more than their female counterparts, according to a survey by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MOGEF).

Men were paid an average of 79.8 million won (US$68,800) in 2020, while female workers received 51.1 million won (US$44,166), based on a study of 2,149 listed companies. 

The gender wage gap, which measures the rate of men’s average pay to that of women, measured 35.9% last year. This is higher than the OECD’s latest average gender wage gap of 12.8%. 

MOGEF said that the wage gap tends to be in line with the workers’ length of service, hitting 28.7% when both genders have worked the same length of time. However, the gap widens to 46.1% when the male workers’ length of service is 50% longer than that of female workers. 

For male workers, their length of service was longer at 12.2 years, while female workers registered 8.2 years. The difference in the career length of both genders was 32.6% last year, down 2.6 percentage points from the 35.2% recorded in 2019. 

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Industry-wise, workers in business facilities management firms experienced the highest gender pay gap of 48.5%, while companies in the financial sector registered 41.4% in the gender pay gap.