Court rules ex-wife not entitled to split pension despite 5-year marriage on paper

A court has ruled that a man does not have to share his old-age pension with his former wife, even though their registered marriage lasted more than five years, finding that the couple's actual cohabitation fell short of the legal threshold.

The Seoul Administrative Court's Third Administrative Division, presided over by Judge Ho Sung-ho, recently ruled in favor of a pension recipient identified as A in a lawsuit he filed against the National Pension Service to overturn a decision that would have reduced his pension payments. The court held that even when the period recorded on a marriage registration exceeds the legally required five years, benefit rights cannot be recognized if the couple's actual life together as spouses lasted less than five years.

A married his wife, identified as B, in 1992. After a prolonged separation, the two divorced by mutual agreement roughly seven years later. A retired in his 60s and began receiving an old-age pension in 2018. His former wife then filed a claim with the National Pension Service in 2024, seeking half of the portion of his pension corresponding to their marriage period. The service determined that the pension accrued over 83 months of marriage should be split equally between the two.

A contested the decision, arguing that an extended separation meant the marriage had no substantive reality for most of its registered duration. Under the National Pension Act, a claim for pension splitting requires at least five years of "substantive marriage" — a period that excludes time spent separated or apart due to desertion. The service rejected his objection on review, finding that at least 80 months of the marriage could be recognized as valid. A then filed a lawsuit against the service.

The court sided with A. The panel found that the couple had begun living apart no later than March 1996. The husband claimed his wife had left home in 1995, while she said he had driven her out — their accounts of how the separation began differed — but both acknowledged they had not lived together from at least March of the following year. The court noted that the two had each registered separate addresses in March 1996 and were never again listed at the same address in the resident registration records.

The court also found no meaningful marital interaction in how the couple handled child-rearing after the separation. "After the separation, the husband raised the child, and there is no evidence that the wife sent child support to the husband before the divorce was finalized," the panel said. "While it appears the wife sent the child clothing and daily necessities through her mother-in-law, that alone is not sufficient to conclude that the substance of the marriage was maintained through the child." The ruling in A's favor became final after neither the National Pension Service nor the former wife filed an appeal.