OBJECTIVES: Irregular workers have rapidly increased in Korea since the 1997 financial crisis. The objective of this study is to examine the health expenditure of irregular worker compared with that of regular worker. METHODS: I used the raw data of “National Survey of the Actual Conditions of Household Livelihood (2003)”. This was household-based survey and collected householder’s socioeconomic status and monthly health expenditures of 25,645 households. Health expenditure included hospital charge, pharmaceutical expense. Householder’s job was categorized into five groups: regular worker, irregular worker, employer/self-employer, no job, others. RESULTS: Median monthly health expenditure of total households and that of regular worker was WON40,000 and that of irregular worker was 30 thousands won. More households whose householders were irregular workers (22.47%) responded that they were short of money for healthcare than those with regular worker householders (11.68%). Controlling for the number of family and the number of chronic disease patients, the shortage of health expenditure was more in irregular workers’ households than regular workers’ households.   CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study indicate that not only unemployment but also irregular work may be obstacle for spending enough money on health care.