In 2009, the South Korean government submitted the first “2010 Gender responsive budgeting report” to the parliament which contains the gender analysis of the 195 projects that 29 central ministries have launched with a total budget of 731,44 billion won. Still, most studies on GRB have concentrated on constructing the infrastructure since it is only the beginning of the policy implementation. Although the policy was adopted, very little has been studied on the economic practice of GRB. If the implementation of GRB helps to improve gender equality in Korea and people rate this outcome positively, estimation of economic value of GRB would be possible to some degree, although indirectly.
Therefore, this study attempts to assess the economic value of government's financial project that is sensitive to gender identity of the people, the consumer of the policy, by using CVM(Contingent Valuation Method). In this respect, the present study primarily focused on the empirical analysis in order to estimate the monetary value of Gender equality improvement through the methods of econometrics.
Estimation of WTP(Willingness To Pay) for GRB providing that the compilation and allocation of government budget promotes gender equality. Here, the value of improving both quality and quantity of public restroom facility is estimated in order to evaluate effectiveness of GRB in increasing of gender equality. Per capita monthly WTP was 1,069 won. When re-analyzing the data after dividing it according to gender, female per capita WTP was 1,266 won, while male per capita WTP was 1,969 won. The mean monthly WTP was equivalent to 12,830 won annually per person. The annual WTP was 15,187 won for female and 23,626 won for male.
Assuming the data refers to the adult population aged over 20 years, the economic value of the improved gender equality after introducing GRB becomes 465,000 million won. When the total estimates is divided by the number of households, the average economic value per household is 29,095 won per year, which means the value of the improved gender equality per household is 29,095 won per year when the government budgeting is executed in a gender-equal way.
However, the empirical analysis above has several limitations in its analyzing method. Although Limitations of this study must be taken into account, they are expected to provide some motivations for a further study which demands a more delicate method. Despite its shortcomings, this analysis showed that GRB provides services which every individual can take benefit of. Hence, the result not only suggests the necessity of financial service that follows the principle of gender diversity but also emphasizes the importance of research on the analysis of effectiveness of GRB in Korean academia like in other advanced countries where system and conception of gender equality has been successfully developed.
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