Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Facing Abolition Debate, Research Report Suggests "Rename and Expand Functions"

Ministry of Gender Equality Commissioned Administrative Science Association's 'Policy Development Plan Report'
"Need to Strengthen Comprehensive Coordination of Government-wide Gender Equality Policies"
Proposal to Rename Department to 'Gender Equality and Family Youth Department' to Overcome Perception of Serving Only Women

Amid debates over the abolition of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MOGEF) in the presidential election landscape, a study has suggested changing the ministry's name and expanding and reorganizing its functions.

On the 10th, the Korean Association for Public Administration, commissioned by MOGEF, released the report titled "Mid- to Long-Term Vision and Policy Development Plan for Women, Youth, and Family Policies," stating that "the functions of overseeing and coordinating government-wide gender equality policies, enhancing women's representation, creating better working environments, closing gender gaps in the labor market, and fostering a family-friendly social environment should be further strengthened." It added, "Since addressing violence against women is a multi-ministerial task, the function to oversee and coordinate related agencies should be reinforced."

The report pointed out that the most lacking aspect of MOGEF is its government-wide gender equality policy oversight function, which needs to be strengthened to ensure effectiveness. This is because women's policies are closely related to child, youth, and family policies, requiring an enhanced role in planning, coordinating, and supporting policies on a broad scale. MOGEF holds the lowest status among government ministries and suffers from insufficient budget and personnel, as well as lacking coordination functions for social conflict and integration or authority to rectify discrimination. The reason MOGEF announced in its 2022 work plan the introduction of corrective order authority for sexual harassment and sexual violence cases in the public sector is in line with this context.

The report proposed renaming the ministry to the "Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Youth." This reflects the judgment that there is a need to move away from the perception that the ministry serves only women, despite its policy targets including families and youth. The report expected that "this would improve the perception of the ministry as one aiming for gender equality and create an opportunity to promote social integration tasks such as addressing gender perception gaps."

More countries abroad are establishing organizations to promote women's policies. Most take the form of ministries or subordinate organizations that collaborate with other ministries to carry out gender equality work and are granted considerable authority. The report stated, "It is necessary to empower MOGEF with strong authority, like Germany and France, so that while other ministries pursue gender equality policies within their own domains, MOGEF can act as a kind of control tower, thereby strengthening its execution power."

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