Gender Budgeting? Gender Equality Budget System Ineffective in Supporting Students with Disabilities and Marketing

Yejongcheo Points Out Review of Inappropriate Projects... "Mandatory Education for Disabled Elementary and Middle School Students Lacks Gender Equality Considerations"
Last Year's Government Budget 27.3 Trillion Won... This Year Increased Significantly to 32.7 Trillion Won

[Asia Economy Reporter Naju-seok] The government's gender-responsive budgeting system has been criticized as a "nominally gender-equal project." Gender-responsive budgeting is intended to consider budget allocation from a gender equality perspective, but unrelated projects have been included, leading to criticism that it is being used for "performance packaging."

President Yoon Suk-yeol is delivering the budget address for the next year at the National Assembly plenary session on the 25th. The Democratic Party of Korea has defined the prosecution's investigation into Daejang-dong as political retaliation and boycotted President Yoon's budget address. Photo by Yoon Dong-ju doso7@

According to the "2023 Gender-Responsive Budget Report" included in the National Assembly Budget Office's analysis report on next year's budget on the 7th, the Ministry of Education classified the support project for educational activities of elementary and secondary students with disabilities at national special schools as a gender-responsive budget target. The Budget Office pointed out, "Elementary and secondary students with disabilities attending national special schools receive compulsory and free education, so there is little need to consider gender-equal elements in budget execution," and stated that "a review of gender-responsive target projects is necessary."

The same applies to the humanities and social sciences basic research project supporting the next generation of scholars. The Ministry of Education explained, "It contributes to enhancing university and national research capabilities through continuous and gender-equal academic activities for excellent doctoral-level personnel in the humanities and social sciences." However, the Budget Office said, "This is a project that selects and supports excellent research tasks regardless of the applicant's gender," and expressed the need for a review.

Additionally, projects such as marketing support for overseas expansion of small and medium-sized enterprises in the domestic information and communication broadcasting convergence service sector, multi-family purchase rental loans for single-parent families, jeonse rental loans, and jeonse rental operating subsidies were also classified as gender-responsive budgets, which was evaluated as "inappropriate."

The gender-responsive budgeting system is a process that examines whether budget allocation undergoes a resource distribution process aimed at changing the structure and rules of budget allocation so that national resources can be used in a more gender-equal manner by analyzing the effects of the budget on women and men. It is a kind of "classification" that analyzes how each budget affects gender equality and reflects it in the budget. Last year, 39 ministries submitted 341 projects (27.3065 trillion won) as gender-responsive budgets, and this year, 38 ministries submitted 302 projects (budget scale of 32.7123 trillion won) to the National Assembly as related budgets. Although the number of institutional projects decreased, the budget scale increased by 19.8%.

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