Seoul has best work-life balance in South Korea

The survey showed that the capital city ranked first with 62.0 points in the 2020 work-life balance index among the country’s 17 metropolitan cities and provinces.

This was followed by Busan with 61.2 points, Jeju with 57.6, South Jeolla Province with 57.4 and Sejong with 55.9. The country’s overall work-life balance index averaged 53.4 points last year, up 2.9 percentage points from the 50.5 points a year ago.

The five bottom-ranked cities/provinces had indexes below the nation’s average: Incheon (49.7), Gwangju (48.5), North Jeolla Province (48.0), North Gyeongsang Province (47.9) and Gangwon (47.0).

For the country as a whole, on the ‘work’ side, the total number of monthly working hours fell from 182.8 to 163.4 and that of overtime working hours declined from 12.2 to 10.0, partly due to the government’s 52-hour workweek policy and the increased adoption of flexible working hours and working from home attributed to measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

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On the ‘life’ side, the share of those who said housework should be shared equally between men and women increased from 58.7% to 62.1%, according to The Korea Bizwire.