KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

The Evaluation on Recent Women’s Policy and New Government’s Strategic Tasks

Tae-Hong Kim
Hye-Kyung Chang
Jung-Im Hwang
Ho-Joong Bae

 

Due to the changes of economic, social and cultural environment since 2003, women's issue and policy has changed rapidly. In addition, administrative organization to deal with policies for women and the women's policies in each ministry have been changed frequently in participatory government and current government(The Lee Myung-bak government). In Korea, percent distribution of population aging (65 years and over) has steadily increased due to low fertility and population aging. Thus, Korean government has actively been involved in reducing the low birth rate and population aging since mid of 2000's. However, as the forecast of population, the trend of labour shortage and aging of worker will be evitable. In that situation, the policy to empower  women by expanding employment opportunities, welfare services for them and work and balance system will allow Korean society to prosper over the long run. In recent the proportion of single-generation households including one-person household to total households has increased steadily. As the research on family, family structure is linked to various social problems, for example poverty. Divorce and separation are linked to movements into poverty, especially for women. Single-parent families with a working adult generally have higher poverty rates than two-parent households in which only one parent is in employment. And young people living with their parents face a substantially lower poverty risk and children in single-parent families face an elevated risk of poverty. Despite of significant improvement over the decades, the gender inequality remains prevalent in Korean society. For example there are low representation of women in decision making position, the large disparity between the average salaries of its male and female workers, prejudice against women. Even though Korean government has coped to domestic and sexual violence against, it remains still a serious social problems. In this research, we evaluate women's policy and issues, projects social economic, social environment, and demographic structure during 2013∼2017. On the basis of that analysis, we suggest the following 12 strategic tasks that new government should carry out. Support for employment of young unemployed women Improvement of work conditions for non-standard women workers Support for a better work and life balance Expansion of the publicity of child care services Expansion of family support infrastructure for elder care services