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Lee Soo-jung, a professor of criminal psychology at Kyonggi University, speaks at a debate on alternatives to abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family held by People Power Party lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun’s office and the Korean National Council of Women on April 5. (provided by the KNCW)

“South Korea ranks first among Asian countries in the UN Gender Inequality Index, so what’s there to be gained now by insisting on improving women’s rights? I’m a woman myself, but this is how I personally think [about the issue].”

This remark came from Lee Soo-jung, a professor of criminal psychology at Kyonggi University, during a panel debate on the future of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family at the National Assembly Members’ Office Building on Tuesday.

The event was co-hosted by the Korean National Council of Women and People Power Party (PPP) lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun’s office. Among those taking part in the panel were Lee Soo-jung; Hong Sung-gul, professor of public administration at Kookmin University; Cha In-soon, the former chief of staff of the National Assembly's Gender Equality and Family Committee and adjunct professor at the Parliamentary Institute; and Hana Becker, first secretary of political affairs at the German Embassy in Seoul.

Lee, who most recently served as co-chair of the PPP’s election campaign committee, gave a 14-minute talk titled “A Framework on How to Promote Gender Equality Policy” at the panel. During her talk, she emphasized that the bigger issue in Korea is not gender discrimination, but suicide.

Pointing to the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index, she said that South Korea ranked 102nd out of 156 countries.

“Although [Korea] is ranking towards the bottom of the list, the suicide rate has continued to be No. 1 for 20 years,” Lee said. On the other hand, South Korea ranks 11th on the UN’s Gender Inequality Index (GII), Lee stressed, adding that women’s rights in South Korea are “not necessarily unequal.”

Towards the end of her presentation, Lee acknowledged South Korea’s poor ranking as being the most unequal country for women in Asia as per the UN’s GII, but still asked, “What is there to gain by continuously insisting on [women’s rights]?” Throughout her presentation, Lee tried to emphasize that Korea’s gender inequality problem was really not as bad as the statistics make it out to be.

The GII report cited by Lee is compiled by the United Nations Development Program by looking at five indicators for each country: maternal mortality rate, adolescent birth rate, the proportion of parliamentary seats occupied by women, secondary education rate, and labor market participation.

The closer a country’s score is to 0, the more equal it is, and the closer it is to 1, the more unequal.

South Korea’s current score stands at 0.064, ranking No. 11 among all countries included on the index and No. 1 in Asia. Looking at these numbers, Korea actually ranks pretty high, considering 189 countries were included in the report.

However, it should be noted that this high ranking is closely related to South Korea’s good numbers on the maternal mortality and adolescent birth rate indicators.

The adolescent birth ratio (number of births among 1,000 women aged 15 to 19) in Korea is 1.4, the lowest among the 189 countries surveyed. Moreover, the maternal mortality rate (the number of deaths due to childbirth out of 100,000 women) in South Korea is also low at 11.

On the other hand, indicators showing the gender gap between men and women in politics, education, and the labor force show the actual current status of structural gender discrimination in South Korea.

In Korea, the proportion of female lawmakers is 16.7%. Other countries that scored along the 16% mark were mainly developing countries like Azerbaijan (16.8%), Paraguay (16.8%), Libya (16.0%), Uzbekistan (16.4%), Madagascar (16.9%) and Togo (16.5%).

It’s also important to look at the trends in how these figures have changed over time. Although South Korea’s maternal mortality rate and adolescent birth rate either held steady or improved between 2018 to 2020, during the same period, the proportion of female lawmakers and the proportion of women with some level of secondary education decreased.

The ratio of women lawmakers was 17% in 2018 and 2019, but then decreased to 16.7% in 2020. Similarly, the ratio of women with secondary education was 89.8% in 2018 and 2019, but also decreased in 2020 to 80.4%.

However, one area that did see improvement was the ratio of women participating in the workforce. The numbers went up from 52.2% in 2018 to 52.9% in 2020.

Looking at the published GII figures without properly understanding the context of the situation would make anyone believe that South Korea is indeed a leader in terms of gender equality.

The reality, however, is more accurately portrayed in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index (GGI), which looks at four key dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. Here, South Korea ranks 102nd out of 156 countries as of 2021.

Nevertheless, Lee does not see a need for an entire ministry dedicated to gender issues.

“I looked everywhere and could only find 10 countries at most, including Germany, in the world that have a separate ministry similar to [Korea’s] Ministry of Gender Equality and Family,” Lee said.

Instead, she says there are many examples of gender issues being handled by committees within other ministries, which is among the options that president-elect Yoon’s transition team has proposed.

However, the reality is different. According to the "Directory of National Mechanisms for Gender Equality" released by UN Women in March last year, 160 out of 194 countries have separate independent agencies dedicated to gender equality.

In fact, if we look at the current trends, more and more countries have been establishing ministerial-level bodies to handle gender equality issues. The number of countries with independent ministries dealing with gender issues increased from 107 countries in 2008 to 160 in 2020. On the other hand, the number of countries with commissions dealing with gender issues stood at only 20 in 2018 and decreased to 17 in 2020.

Based on the statistics she cited during her presentation, Lee suggested that, instead of the current Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, a new department should be created that deals with demographic policy, suicide and child abuse.

“In a country where 40 people die by suicide every day [on average], how can we be so insensitive to this issue?” Lee asked. “Particularly, the suicide rate of women in their 20s and 30s has abnormally shot up during the COVID-19 pandemic,” she added.

However, what Lee failed to mention were issues such as gender violence, employment discrimination, and the gender wage gap — the very problems at the core of why so many young women are dying by suicide in the first place.

By Choi Yoon-ah, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]