Across Korea's listed companies, women's average pay is 73% of men's
Companies file average pay by gender. Across 2,720 listed firms the median woman's pay is 73.2% of the median man's, and four in ten sit below 70%. It is mostly a gap in who holds which job, not pay for the same work. Not advice.
AI-assisted, human-reviewed sourcing. Figures are pulled programmatically from the official sources listed at the end of this article and checked by an editor before publication.
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Korean companies report, in their annual filings, the average pay of their male and female employees separately. Put the two together across the market and a single number falls out: at the typical listed company, the average woman is paid 73.2% of what the average man is paid. It is one of the more consistent numbers in the whole dataset — and one of the most easily misread, so it is worth being precise about what it is.
The distribution, not just the median
Across the 2,720 companies that file pay by gender, the median female-to-male ratio is 73.2%. The spread is wide but one-sided. 1,078 companies — 39.6% — pay their women under 70% of the male average. 131 sit below half. At the other end, only 92 companies (3.4%) reach or pass parity, and most of those are small. There is no meaningful cluster of firms where women out-earn men; the mass of the distribution sits between 65% and 80%.
Every sector, in the same direction
Broken out by sector, the gap narrows and widens but never closes. It is deepest in financial support services (median 60.9%) and building construction (64.6%), and shallowest in apparel (79.4%), pharmaceuticals (77.3%) and research and development (77.4%). Even the shallowest large sector leaves the average woman about a fifth behind. Finance is a study in itself: it employs a relatively high share of women, yet its average pay ratio is among the lowest — a sign that the women are concentrated in the lower-paid half of the payroll.
What the number is — and is not
This is the part that matters. A 73% average-pay ratio is not a measure of unequal pay for the same work, and reading it that way is wrong. It is the gap between two company-wide averages, and it mostly reflects who holds which job: how many women sit in senior, long-tenured or higher-paid roles versus junior ones, how hours and role mix differ, how far up the ladder the average woman has climbed. A company could pay identically for identical work and still file a 70% ratio if its senior ranks are mostly men — which, across Korea, they largely are. This is not investment advice and not an accusation against any single firm; it is a description of workforce structure. What it shows, cleanly and everywhere, is that the average woman at a Korean listed company works lower down the pay distribution than the average man, and that the gap is remarkably stable — around three-quarters — from one end of the market to the other.
Data & Verification Notes
- Data as of
- Sources
- SeoulMarkets company-filings dataset — Average annual pay by gender as filed to DART (FY2025 basis), joined to KRX listings on ticker
- Cross-checks
- 2,720 listed companies disclose average pay separately for men and women; the median ratio of female to male average pay is 73.2%
- 1,078 companies (39.6%) pay their women under 70% of what they pay their men on average; 131 sit below 50%; only 92 (3.4%) are at or above parity
- By sector the median ratio runs from 60.9% in financial support services and 64.6% in building construction up to 79.4% in apparel and 77.3% in pharmaceuticals — no large sector reaches parity
- Excluded figures
- Any claim that this is unequal pay for the same work — a company's average-pay gap mostly reflects which jobs men and women hold (seniority, role and hours), which these filings do not break out
- The 142 companies that do not file pay split by gender
- How holding-company disclosure (head office only) narrows or widens a single firm's figure; the market-wide median is robust to it, individual names are not
The full dataset behind these figures — every listed company, every row — is available to license. SeoulMarkets data for licence →
Not investment advice. SMarkets publishes data journalism for general information only. Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation, or an offer to buy or sell any security — any investment you make is at your own risk and responsibility. Figures are derived from official public data sources and may be revised by the issuing agency. Verify independently before acting.
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