The Current State of Gender Pension Gaps in Korea and Its Implications for Policy

Abstract

Gender pension gaps in European countries, having been consistently kept in check as a core social policy indicator since the beginning of the 2000s, have increasingly narrowed in recent years. Korea’s National Pension is paying out an increasing amount of benefits to a growing number of recipients, but there still remain significant gaps between men and women in the number of years of contribution payments and the pension receipt rate. In Korea, women in many cases fail to secure an adequate level of pensions as, in addition to the fact that the pension rights they have are often of a derivative nature, such as survivor's pension entitlement, it is difficult in many ways for them to stay enrolled long-term—say, 20 years or longer—in the system. Reducing gender pension gaps requires proactive efforts to ensure more women have their own pension entitlements based on more years of contribution payments.