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New analysis reveals impact of wage gap on marital domestic responsibilities in Korea

Published: 24 Nov. 2025, 11:37

Children stroll along blooming cosmos flowers in Hayang-eup, Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang, on the afternoon of Oct. 10. [NEWS1]

Husbands tend to take on more child care and housework when their wives earn higher wages, while wives bear less of the domestic burden when their husbands come home earlier from work, according to new analysis.

Choi Yeon-kyo, an adviser at the Bank of Korea's Monetary Policy Board Secretariat, presented the findings — which are based on an analysis of data from the Ministry of Data and Statistics — on Monday in a contribution to the central bank’s in-house publication.

Choi found that among dual-income couples, the more hours a spouse worked or the higher a spouse’s wage, the more time the other partner spent on housework.

Broken down by gender, both husbands and wives spent more time on domestic labor when their working hours were shorter or when they had young children. But other factors differed by gender.

For husbands, the number of children and their own wages had no statistically significant relationship with time spent on housework. Instead, their wives’ working hours and wage levels were the main variables. Wives, by contrast, saw their domestic labor shaped by all major factors — the number of children, their wages and their working hours.

“When wives earn higher wages, husbands participate more in child care and housework, and when husbands come home earlier, wives’ housework hours decrease,” Choi said.

A woman marches in central Seoul with a picket demanding a reduction in the gender wage gap. [YONHAP]

She added that this may be because “husbands tend to face stronger pressures related to breadwinning or working overtime, while wives remain the final line of responsibility for child care and household duties.”

Choi noted that women in Korea earn roughly 70 percent of what men do, with the gender wage gap being the widest among member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Narrowing this wage gap would likely lead husbands to take more active roles in domestic and child-rearing duties — a shift that could naturally help lift the nation’s birthrate, according to Choi.

Whereas in the past, higher wages for women were associated with greater labor supply and lower fertility, high-income countries today tend to see higher fertility where women’s work force participation is stronger.

“Going forward, narrowing the gender wage gap and promoting a culture of husbands leaving work on time may be key to reshaping Korea’s fertility trends,” Choi said.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY JUNG SI-NAE [[email protected]]