Top 20% Own Assets Worth an Average 1.65 Billion Won, 64-fold of Property Owned by Bottom 20%

Apartment complexes in Seoul seen from the N Seoul Tower on Namsan Mountain. Mun Jae-won

The top 20% of households based on wealth (fifth wealth quintile) owned 64 times the property owned by the bottom 20% (first wealth quintile), recording the biggest gap in history.

According to the 2022 Survey of Household Finances and Living Conditions released by Statistics Korea on December 1, the mean value of assets owned by the wealthiest 20% was 1,654,570,000 won as of the end of March, while the bottom 20% owned 26,840,000 won. The difference was 64-fold.

The gap was the widest since authorities began compiling relevant statistics in 2012. The previous record was set in 2012, when the gap was 62.4-fold.

Real estate prices soared until last year, and they seem to have contributed to the increase in wealth of the top 20%. According to the Korea Real Estate Board, the sales price of homes jumped 7.47% nationwide from March 2021 until March 2022. During the same period, the value of property owned by the top 20% increased by 137,690,000 won (9.1%), of which rising real estate prices accounted for 128,530,000 won (10.7%).

A closer look at the wealth quintiles showed that 98.6% of those in the fifth quintile owned real estate, while only 10.1% of those in the first quintile owned any real estate.

The gap in net assets--assets minus any liabilities--also widened. The Gini coefficient of net assets, used to measure inequality, was 0.606, the highest in ten years since 2012 (0.617). The Gini coefficient can take any value between 0 and 1, and the closer it is to 1 the higher the level of inequality.