Gyeongbuk Province Implements Family and Women Policies Full of Work, Life, and Rest ... Expanding Family-Friendly Systems and Supporting Multicultural Families

Expansion of Women's Social Participation and Improvement of Regional Gender Equality Index

Gyeongbuk Provincial Government Office.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Gwi-yeol] Gyeongbuk Province, believing that spreading the consensus of "Gahwaman Saseong" (Harmony in the Family Leads to Success in Everything) is fundamental to provincial policies, is focusing on post-Chuseok family and women’s policies to promote the enhancement of family and women’s rights, develop their capabilities, and support active social participation.

As a culture of employee consideration emerges as a source of corporate competitiveness, efforts are concentrated on expanding family-friendly systems such as fostering family-friendly certified companies and measures to prevent domestic and sexual violence.

Support related to work-family balance, which had been limited to the public sector and large corporations, is now being extended to small and medium-sized enterprises through the “Family-Friendly Certified Company Development Project,” aiming to build social consensus on work-life balance and broaden the base of family-friendly management.

To create a safe region for women, visiting violence prevention education and gender rights education are conducted, and one-stop support for victims is strengthened by operating counseling centers and protection facilities related to domestic and sexual violence on a regular basis.

Recognizing the importance of multicultural families in the local community, comprehensive services are proactively provided to help multicultural families settle stably in Korean society.

Support for multicultural family children’s learning and career paths is provided online, and a non-face-to-face educational environment is created through studio booths and professional equipment. This ensures educational rights and improves information accessibility for marriage immigrants who find it difficult to visit educational institutions, minimizing blind spots through the establishment of a social inclusion safety net.

To establish a platform for women’s social participation, tailored support is provided for creating women’s jobs through competency enhancement education, women’s job support, and employment and entrepreneurship training.

The economic activity participation rate and employment rate of women in Gyeongbuk are 50.2% and 48.3%, respectively, which are lower than men’s 74.3% and 72.5%, and most women are concentrated in manufacturing and simple service sectors.

To break down these barriers to women’s economic activities, the province is strengthening networks among job-related institutions and organizations such as companies, vocational training institutions, and social economy organizations centered on the Gyeongbuk Women’s Job Headquarters.

Through this, it is being developed as a control tower institution for women’s jobs that actively responds to women’s employment and entrepreneurship demands, changes in the job environment, and increasingly diverse needs.

Additionally, plans are underway to focus on discovering customized jobs for 70,000 women with career interruptions in the province and the recently highlighted new middle-aged women aged 50 to 70, as well as fostering women entrepreneurs through specialized vocational education and social enterprise development.

The regional gender equality index can only improve when gender equality is realized across the entire local society, including economy, welfare, health, education, and culture.

To improve this, systematic short- and long-term strategies are being prepared, and as part of research-centered innovative provincial governance, collaboration with various entities such as universities, public institutions, central government ministries, and local governments is underway to not only discover tasks but also reflect them in policies, striving to enhance the regional gender equality index.

Seo Han-gyo, Director of the Gyeongbuk Province Women and Family Happiness Division, said, “The role trends of women are changing, and not utilizing female talent is a huge loss socially and economically. We will strive to make Gyeongbuk a happy place where work, life, and rest are harmonized through expanded women’s social participation and fathers’ involvement in childcare.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.