Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Youth Committee proposes policies such as ‘Board Gender Diversity Certification System’

We plan to pilot introduce a 'Board Gender Diversity Certification System' that will establish and comprehensively evaluate a database of female outside director candidates in various professional fields such as law and technology.

Park Chae-yeon, a youth committee member who works in the employment and workplace division of the Youth Coexistence and Empathy Committee (hereinafter referred to as the Youth Committee) of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, met with reporters at the Seoul Government Complex on the 14th and said this.

The Youth Committee, launched last March, is comprised of 150 youth members selected through open recruitment. The male to female ratio is 1 to 1, with 76 people in their 20s and 74 people in their 30s.

The Youth Committee was divided into three subcommittees, including employment/workplace, society/culture, and safety/health, and each subcommittee was divided into five small groups (a total of 15) to write policy proposals one by one.

The small group to which Commissioner Park belongs took note of the fact that there is a gender bias in some occupations and that only 197 (23.2%) of the 847 outside directors of Korea's top 30 groups are women.

He explained, "We are identifying occupations where gender bias is clearly evident, such as field and care fields, and discussing opinions on what evaluation standards are needed for them. We are also planning a survey targeting young people who want to enter gender-sparse occupations."

There were also concerns about reducing gender hate expressions that are rampant in online spaces.

Koo Jun-hee, a youth member of the Society and Culture Division, said, "There are about five government officials who monitor online hate speech," and added, "It is realistically impossible for them to individually supervise the millions of posts and comments that pour in every day."

He added, “As hate speech evolves and changes faster than the legal system, we concluded that it would be more effective to implement an incentive-based evaluation and certification system that allows (platform) companies to act on their own rather than regulations.”

In addition, the youth committee members who met with the press on this day proposed policies such as increasing the ratio of the gender equality hiring target system, surveying perceptions of the military service compensation system, and improving awareness of 'atypical gender violence'.

Some suggested renaming the Gender Equality Recruitment Target System to 'Gender Equality Quota and Additional Passing System', the Women's Safety Guide to 'Everyone's Safety Home', and the Women's Safety Guide to 'Citizens' Safety Guide' to resolve wasteful conflicts and gender awareness gaps surrounding the system.

The policy proposals prepared by the youth committee members are scheduled to be made public through the 'Youth Coexistence and Empathy Committee' mid-term briefing session at the Jeong-dong 1928 Art Center in Jung-gu, Seoul on the 4th.

The details of the proposal will also be made public on the ‘Youth Coexistence and Empathy Network’ website (www.youthcce.or.kr) established last month.

The youth committee members plan to supplement the content through their own interviews and case collection and submit a final report by the end of this year. During the second half of this year, an 'open forum' will be held with the Youth Committee and general youth.

An official from the Ministry of Gender Equality explained, "We are not providing separate budget support (for youth committee activities)," and "Considering the equity and budget aspects as the activities required for each small group are different, it is still difficult to unilaterally support (costs)."