Gender mainstreaming in South Korea – a critical analysis through discursive institutionalism around the issue of childcare

Abstract

The paper aims to reflect critically on the impact of the gender mainstreaming movement upon the issue of childcare in South Korea. To achieve this, I build on data generated from in-depth interviews with key policy actors who participated in relevant policy implementations as well as policy documents collected and analysed through a discursive institutionalism approach. The paper explores two aspects of gender mainstreaming discourse in South Korea and is especially related to the transfer of childcare duty from the Ministry of Welfare and Health to the Ministry of Gender Equality; how it was interpreted in front of politics (‘discourse as content’) and formulated at the back of it (‘discourse as process’). I argue that the discourse of gender mainstreaming around the transfer decision was variously approached by different policy interests and constrained by the dominant gender role regarding childcare (rhetoric policy dependency).