The State of Korea HR 2026

Every KOSPI and KOSDAQ company reports its employees, their average tenure and their average pay separately for women and men, lists every registered director with gender and year of birth, and names everyone paid ₩500 million or more. Three years of those filings, for 1.76 million employees, show a gender pay gap that is narrowing slowly, boards that are still more than nine-tenths men, and a pay gap that length of service alone does not explain.

What the data says

• Women earn about 74% of what men earn. At the median company with 100 or more staff, women's average pay is 73.5% of men's (₩49.1m against ₩67.0m). Only 492 of 1,748 companies reach 80%. On the OECD's own measure, Korea's gap was 29.0% in 2024, the widest of 28 member countries reporting.
• Tenure is not the whole story. Men have served 7.6 years at the median company, women 6.2. But company by company, a smaller tenure gap barely predicts a smaller pay gap: the gap is about more than length of service.
• The gap is narrowing slowly. Among 1,559 companies that reported every year, the median ratio moved from 71.9% in 2023 to 73.7% in 2025.
• One registered director in 13 is a woman. Women hold 7.7% of 13,351 registered director seats; 1,762 of 2,550 boards have none. Women hold 10.2% of outside director seats but 5.9% of inside seats, held by the executives who run the company.
• Directors earn 2.6 times their staff. The median company pays its directors and auditors ₩157.4m each on average. 2,208 people at 991 companies were paid ₩500m or more in 2025.

What's inside

• Korea's listed workforce: headcount, women's share by industry and company size
• Women's pay as a share of men's: distribution, industry, company size and the twelve largest employers
• Tenure and fixed-term contracts, for women and men
• Three years of disclosure, 2023–2025, for the same 1,559 companies
• Boards and executives: women directors, outside and inside seats, the one-gender rule, unregistered executives
• Pay at the top: directors' pay against employees' and the highest disclosed individual pay
• What this means if you hire in Korea
• Excel workbook: every company's headcount, women's share, average pay and tenure for women and men, fixed-term staff, three years of history, board composition and directors' pay

Look inside

Who it is for

• HR and reward leaders hiring in KoreaA defensible benchmark of pay by gender, tenure and board composition, company by company, from mandatory filings.
• Japanese and global companies with Korean operationsWhere your local workforce sits against listed peers on gender balance and pay.
• DEI, ESG and governance teamsThree years of company-level gender data and board composition in one workbook.

How it was made

Built from the annual business reports of KOSPI- and KOSDAQ-listed companies, read through OpenDART, the Financial Supervisory Service's open API: employee status for 2023–2025, and executives, directors' pay and individuals paid ₩500 million or more for 2025. Medians are across companies; pay comparisons use companies with 100 or more staff. The OECD comparison is the OECD gender wage gap indicator. Pay is nominal, in won.

By Yan Sen Lu, Editor of The Hardest Market and Managing Director of Makana Partners.

Questions

Is this pay for the same job?

No. It compares the average pay of all women and all men a company employs, as each company reports it. That is why it moves when women move into senior and technical roles.

What do I get?

A 12-page PDF report and an Excel workbook with every company's figures, by instant download after payment.

Taxes and receipts?

Polar is the merchant of record: it calculates tax and issues the receipt.

Can I share it with my team?

One purchase is for one reader. For a team or company licence, a purchase order or an invoice, write to editor@hardestmarket.com.

Is it in Korean?

The report is in English. Company names are in English; the workbook also has the Korean names and stock codes.