서강대학교

초록/요약

The political sphere in Korea has been considered as a domain for men due to various factors in society, politics and culture. Despite the spread of democracy, and the fact that more and more women are getting higher education and entering the labor market, women's political representation is still relatively lacking given the gender ratio. In the case of the Republic of Korea, features that positively affect the representation of women in politics found in previous studies, such as GDP, the level of women's education and the participation rate of women in the labor market are high, while the proportion of female lawmakers is lower than the world average despite the presence of a women-friendly, proportional representation system and quota system. In addition, it is insufficient to explain that this phenomenon is due to the negative influence of Confucian culture on women's social activities. Taiwan, which shares the same culture, has more than 30 percent of women participating in the National Assembly. As such, the paper focuses on the analysis of institutional factors by comparing various causes affecting women's political representation in both Korea and Taiwan. The role of political parties in each country is important in women’s political representation as they have the power to introduce and generate a women-friendly, proportional representation system and quota system in the National Assembly. The ratio of proportional representation seats in the National Assembly as well as the type of quota system, which are crucial factors that influence women’s political representation, are decided by political parties, and those two factors affect the overall representation of women in politics. With the widespread international awareness on gender equality in this time and age, an analysis on the female political representation in Korea provides a relevant case reflecting women's voices in the male-dominated field of international relations, which in the long term, may also help bring onto the table practical measures to help improve their representation.