Korean Journal of Policy Studies
Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University
Article
Female Constituency, Electoral Competition, and Local Maternity Policy in Korea
Doo-Rae Kim1
1Doo-Rae Kim is an associate professor in the Department of Public Administration at Korea University. E-mail:
kimdr@korea.ac.kr. This work was supported by a grant from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2010-327-B00730). An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the 2011 annual conference of the Midwest Political Science Association. The author would like to thank Hee-Kang Kim for helpful comments and Seok- Jun Jang for excellent research assistance.
© Copyright 2012 Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Received: Jun 08, 2012; Revised: Jun 26, 2012; Revised: Aug 20, 2012; Accepted: Aug 22, 2012
Published Online: Aug 31, 2012
Abstract
This study explores the dynamic nature of maternity policy formation by focusing on the role of the female constituency and electoral competition in rendering policy makers, regardless of their gender, more receptive to the interests of women. The study utilizes original data on maternity policy benefits collected from local governments in Korea. The results show that a strong female constituency and intense electoral competition can lead local policy makers to establish greater maternity benefits. These findings suggest that the electoral power of women in the citizenry and the political vulnerability of elected officials constitute alternative channels for female influence on the formation of local maternity policy in Korea.
Keywords: gender; female constituency; electoral competition; maternity policy
