Public sector gender pay gap falls below 20% for 1st time

For the first time in recorded history, the gender pay gap within Korea's public sector has dropped below 20 percent, according to a recently released survey by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. Women employed by public institutions earned an average of 60.56 million won ($45,300) in 2025, which is 19 percent less than their male counterparts who took home 74.79 million won.

This wage disparity narrowed by 1 percentage point from the previous year, marking the first time the gap has fallen below the 20 percent threshold since the ministry began tracking this data in 2020.

Notably, women's wages at public institutions increased by 4.1 percent compared to a 2.9 percent growth for men. The average tenure of male employees stood at 10.6 years, while women had an average tenure of 8.7 years, a 1.8 percentage point reduction in the tenure gap, now standing at 18.1 percent. Kim Sung-hee, a professor at Korea University, explained that the wage systems within public institutions are strictly designed to minimize gender discrimination, an aspect that private companies are less constrained by.