The purpose of this study is to clarify the influential factor on the effective institutionalization of gender impact assessment in Korean government offices and then to draw the policy assignment. The gender impact assessment was proposed as a core t...
The purpose of this study is to clarify the influential factor on the effective institutionalization of gender impact assessment in Korean government offices and then to draw the policy assignment. The gender impact assessment was proposed as a core tool of gender mainstreaming strategy at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China in 1995 and each state government has been requested to fulfill this assessment.
Korean government had established its legal foundation through the revision of Women's Development Act in 2002. The assessment was performed by public officials of the central government and then local governments as an assessor since 2005 following the preliminary trial assessment in 2004.
The subjects tried to define in this study are as follows. First, to examine the influential factors on the effective institutionalization through the introduction of gender impact assessment. Second, to verify statistically the effectiveness of each factors after dividing into 2-level (individual vs institutional) for the influential factors on the effective institutionalization of gender impact assessment. Third, to clarify how much this factor influence on the effective institutionalization of gender impact assessment in the recognition by public officials who was participated in gender impact assessment.
In order to clarify this issue, mixed methods approaches were utilized in this study. In order words, we examined the literature review of existing policy impact assessment and performed face to face interviews with total 16 people from 9 governments participated in 2005 gender impact assessment and did self-administered survey with about 200 people participated in this assessment (we finally received the responses from 161 people(81%) among them). In order to analyze the data of this examination, in case of interview, we use the grid style analysis after the resorting by items and, in case of the survey, utilize multilevel model analysis and multiple regression analysis.
The results of this study are as follows. First, according to the results of the interview, it was found that the public officials participated in gender impact assessment got a low degree in the recognition of gender impact assessment, while they had an acceptable attitude in spite of a small due to the emphasis on gender equality and the request on the policy quality improvement.
Second, it was presented that the organization which had an department having an exclusive responsibility on gender issues or which was supported by high-ranked officials were more positive than other organizations.
Third, it was shown there was some obstruction in the policy consolidation in re-applying the result of gender impact assessment. For an example, in the low recognition of public officials as assessor, the difficulty of budgeting was found. Because the business schedule of gender impact assessment in the Ministry of Gender Equality & Family(MGEF) was not connected with the budget developing schedule and there was no sufficiency in job takeover between former officials and new officials during the gender impact assessment.
Fourth, the first priority assignment for the system improvement was proposed in order to stabilize gender impact assessment in Korean government offices hereafter. This assignments are the selection standard of the object, indicators, the driving system, the establishment of Act and the revision of the guideline for gender impact assessment stipulated the role and responsibility of the related government office, the concerns and support of high ranked officials, the training for all public officials, support of the related budget, consultation of expert panels, and development of statistics data for the gender separation and reinforcement of public relations.
Fifth, it could be extracted the influential factors on the effective institutionalization of gender impact assessment through the interview. It was found that the important influential factors were the speciality of public officials as an assessor in gender impact assessment and the weight recognition of gender impact assessment in all job of assessor, the attitude against gender impact assessment, concerns and support from the high ranked officials, consultation of available professional institutions and expert panels, the guideline of MGEF, and the gender and job rank of assessors as the individual character.
And the results of this survey are as the belows. First, regarding the question that gender impact assessment would be useful in order to realize the policy for gender equality, a positive response was recorded 50% of the total. And regarding the question that it would be needed the consultation of expert panels in the performing of gender impact assessment, a positive rate was 69.2%. Second, it was shown that the first priority assignment of MGEF for stabilizing the institutionalization of gender impact assessment was the development of the specific Act and the system and index improvement of gender impact assessment. In addition, the first priority assignment of government office was the concerns and supports from the decision makers and the enlargement of working level officials.
Third, according to the results of multilevel model analysis of the influential factor on the stable institutionalization of gender impact assessment recognized by public officials who were participated in gender impact assessment, the sense improvement of gender equality in public officials, the concerns increase of the decision makers, the participation of the related policy maker, the average of 5 factors and the effectiveness of gender impact assessment as institutional character were highly recorded from 11.8% to 19.7%.
And the effectiveness as individual character was presented from 80.3% to 88.2%. This result means that, for the aim of establishing the effective institutionalization of gender impact assessment as the politic assignments, it is needed not only the speciality improvement as an assessor in an individual character but also the secure of expert panels in gender impact assessment, the development of statistics data for the gender separation, the establishment of Act, and system and the support from decision makers in the institutional character.
Fourth, on the one hand, among the influential factors on the effective institutionalization of gender impact recognized by public officials who were participated in gender impact assessment, the data regarding the participation of the training for gender impact assessment, job weight recognition of gender impact assessment and the attitude to gender equality policy were meaningful statistically as independent variables of the individual level. The rest data regarding the working experience in gender related department, the word recognition of gender impact assessment, the gender and job rank were meaningless.
On the other hand, it was found that the support from the decision maker was highest influential as independent variables of the institutional level and the consultation of expert panels in gender impact assessment and the development of statistics data for the gender separation were also meaningful statistically. However, the rest variables regarding establishment of Act and regulations, driving procedure and the belonging organization were meaningless.
According to the above results of this study, in order to stabilize the effective institutionalization of gender impact assessment in government office, an additional effort of public officials and government office seems to be needed. And it was found that the concerns and supports from the decision maker would be importantly requested.
This study is significant both in theory and policy by drawing the influential factors of effective institutionalization in gender impact assessment and practical validation on the effectiveness of each factors in institutional level as well as individual level. But, this study also has a limit in relation to the aspect of generalizing the study results, because it covered only one case which public officials participated in gender impact assessment as an assessor in Korea.