Explaining the Causes of the Increase in Gender Related Legislations in Korea: Movement Institutionalization and its Consequences

In Korean Assembly the total number of gender related legislations and the rate of passed legislation drastically increased from the year 1998. The question is why did gender related legislations increase from that year? To answer this question, I address the policy reforms that had occurred in Korea and moreover the reasons to such institutional changes. After analyzing the institutional change in the policy making structure, I show how the institutions had impact on the gender related legislations. Briefly, the results show that the women’s movement in South Korea had attempted to engage in institutional politics and to place their gender concerns on the political agenda. And under the advent of reformative regimes since 1998, the women’s movement has succeeded in dramatically increasing the number of women legislators in the National Assembly and in establishing a formal political institution, the Ministry of Gender Equality (MGE), which represents their cause. Those institutional changes were crucial causes of the drastic increase on gender related legislations. Thus, in this paper, I descriptively assess the increase of gender-relevant legislation inside the National Assembly. I then illuminate the causes of drastic increase in gender related legislation by applying the influence of two major policy institution reforms. I, as a result, demonstrate that the women’s movement in South Korea was successful in intervening in political institutions and the political institutional change was successful in increasing gender related legislations