The Korea Local Administration Review

More than half of the world population is constituted of women but women’srepresentation in politics is below 15 percent. Despite the profound internationalefforts to gender equity, there are only twelve countries where women hold33% or more seats in the parliaments. The phenomenon of low women’spolitical representation is similar in South Korea. Therefore, this paper attempts topresent the conceptual framework of women’s participation to the formal arena ofpolitics; identifies institutions that facilitate the women’s political participations;and finally analyzes the historical institutions over two decades adopted inSouth Korea to promote women’s political representation. And this paper usesthe Gender Empowerment Measure with the control variables. The results show thatelectoral institutions have influenced positively on the women’s representation inpolitics.
□ Keywords: Women’s Participation, Local Election, Electoral Institutions, GenderEmpowerment Measure