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

For the first time ever, the gender pay gap in Korea's public sector has fallen below the 20 percent threshold, according to a report from the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. In 2025, female employees in public institutions earned an average of 60.56 million won ($45,300), 19 percent less than their male counterparts who took home 74.79 million won on average.

The gender wage statistics survey, which recorded data for 3,146 private companies and 355 public institutions, revealed that the gap has narrowed by one percentage point compared to the previous year, marking the first time since 2020 that it has dipped below the 20 percent mark.

The improvement in the pay gap can be attributed to the wage growth of women in public institutions, which surged by 4.1 percent year-over-year, surpassing the 2.9 percent growth experienced by men. This wage increase was largely driven by public sector policies that strictly prohibit gender discrimination in compensation. According to Kim Sung-hee, a professor at Korea University, public institutions' wage systems play a significant role in reducing gender pay disparities, as private companies are less bound by such strict regulations.

Moreover, the report highlighted a narrowing of the tenure gap between male and female employees in public institutions, which saw a 1.8 percentage point reduction, dropping from 18.9 percent to 18.1 percent. Women's average tenure stood at 8.7 years, while men's average tenure was 10.6 years. This reduction in the tenure gap further contributes to the declining gender pay gap in Korea's public sector.