South Korea’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family is set for its largest budget on record next year, driven mainly by a sharp expansion in family-policy spending. The 2027 budget is set at 2.1191 trillion won, an increase of 110.4 billion won, according to Kyunghyang Shinmun.
A major part of the increase is a marriage-support payment that would give 1 million won to married couples. The budget allocates 166.3 billion won to that program alone. The shift makes family formation one of the clearest priorities inside the ministry’s expanded spending plan.
The increase is not uniform across the ministry. National funding for safety and rights programs, including youth policy and responses to gender-based violence, is reported to decline. That makes the budget more than a simple expansion: it changes the internal balance of spending. The next question is whether lawmakers preserve that allocation mix through the budget process or redirect part of the increase toward programs that are currently being reduced.