(123rf)

The number of female local government employees surpassed that of their male counterparts for the first time ever in 2023, data showed Tuesday, but higher-ranked civil servants were still mostly men.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety released data on those working in the government bodies of metropolitan and provincial regions or districts, which showed that 157,935 civil servants were women as of late 2023. This figure accounts for 50.4 percent of the total 313,296 workers in local government offices.

The number of women marked an increase from 49.4 percent in 2022, on an upward trend since 37.9 percent in 2018. The metropolitan governments of Busan, Seoul and Incheon had the largest percentages of female workers -- at 56 percent, 54.4 percent and 53.6 percent, respectively -- while the provincial governments of South Gyeongsang Province and Jeju Island had the smallest, at 44.1 percent and 44.2 percent.

But while there are more female civil servants than ever before, only 18.8 percent of those Grade 1-4 -- considered senior positions in South Korea's nine-grade civil servant system -- were women.

Female civil servants accounted for 14.3 percent of Grade 1, 3.4 percent of Grade 2, 12.7 percent of Grade 3 and 20 percent of Grade 4.

Compared to the 37.1 percent average for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member countries as of 2020, Korea has far smaller percentages of women in senior government positions.

Last year, the government revealed a five-year plan to raise the percentages of female high ranking officials in the public sector. For instance, it plans to raise the portion of women in managerial government positions to 30 percent in the central government and 32.2 percent in regional government offices by 2027.