Last year, the domestic female employment rate rose slightly, narrowing the gap between men and women. The number of "career-interrupted women" fell noticeably.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) on the 28th released the "2025 White Paper on Women's Economic Activity" with these findings. As of last year, the number of employed women was 12,652,000, up 188,000 from the previous year.
The female employment rate was 54.7%, up 0.6 percentage points from the previous year (54.1%). Highly educated women drove the rise in the female employment rate. The employment rate for women with a college degree or higher was 69.1%, up 6.5 percentage points from 2014 (62.6%). The male employment rate was 70.9% last year, down from 71.3% in 2023.
As the female employment rate gradually increases, the gender employment gap continues to narrow. The gap shrank from 22.0 percentage points in 2014 to 19.1 percentage points in 2019 and 16.2 percentage points in 2024.
With the rise in the female employment rate, the number of career-interrupted women also declined sharply. Last year, the number of career-interrupted women was 1,215,000, down 134,000 (9.9%) from 2023.
By age group, in 2015 women in their 30s accounted for the largest share of career-interrupted women at 52.6%, but last year women in their 40s accounted for the highest share at 44.8%. The top reason for career interruption also shifted from "marriage" (37.0%) in 2015 to "childcare" (41.2%) in 2024.