South Korea’s Wealth Gap Widens as Top 10% Hold 46.1% of Assets

South Korea’s household wealth gap is widening even as overall average net worth ticks upward, driven primarily by a widening chasm in household savings capacity and soaring real estate prices in the Seoul metropolitan area.

According to data released on March 10 from the national statistics agency’s 2025 Household Financial Welfare Survey, the average net worth per household stood at 471.44 million won at the end of March last year, marking a 5.0% increase from the previous year. Net worth is calculated as total assets minus liabilities.

However, that aggregate growth masks stark disparities at the economic margins. The net worth of households in the bottom 20% income bracket actually declined by 4.9%. Meanwhile, the top 10% of households by net worth accounted for 46.1% of the total aggregate net worth nationwide, an increase of 1.6 percentage points compared to the year before. This means nearly half of all household wealth is concentrated within the top decile.

Economists point to the stark difference in post-expense savings between high and low earners as a core driver behind this deepening wealth polarization. While lower-income families struggle simply to cover basic living expenses, affluent households retain substantial disposable income that they can funnel into savings and investments.

The money left over after those mandatory outlays amounted to just 4.4% of their income.

By contrast, households in the top 20% income bracket spent only 53.2% of their ordinary income and retained 46.8%. Not only do high earners bring in vastly more raw income, but a significantly higher proportion of that money remains available for capital accumulation and asset growth.

Property values have further accelerated this divergence. The institute's analysis showed that homeownership—and specifically owning property in the capital region—was critical in determining wealth trajectories.

When housing demand surges in an environment where property prices already outpace standard incomes, it triggers a feedback loop between housing costs and household debt. Homeowning households benefit directly from capital appreciation, while prospective buyers face a constantly moving target requiring larger sums just to enter the market.

Financial asset ownership follows a similar dynamic. Price gains in both the housing and stock markets disproportionately benefit those who already hold those assets, widening the gap with non-owners.

Long-term trends also show diverging paths between income and asset distribution. The KDI study noted that income inequality has eased somewhat due to a rising income share among the bottom 75% of earners. In contrast, asset inequality has worsened, with the top 25% expanding their share of total wealth.

At the same time, recent short-term indicators suggest income distribution is also tightening in a negative direction. The latest Household Financial Welfare Survey reported that the Gini coefficient for equivalized disposable income reached 0.325 in 2024, up 0.002 from the previous year. The Gini coefficient measures income distribution on a scale from 0 to 1, where 0 represents absolute equality and 1 represents complete inequality.