Women Comprise 45% of Executive Branch Staff

The number of women working for the executive branch has skyrocketed to occupy almost half of the branch’s entire workforce.

More women are prosecutors, police officers and staff at public security agencies such drug enforcement, corrections and probation, and immigration enforcement.

The Public Administration and Security Ministry said yesterday that the executive branch had 272,636 women as full-time officials, or 45.2 percent of the branch’s entire workforce of 603,131.

Workers of the executive branch exclude those with the courts, the National Election Commission, the National Assembly and provincial authorities. Executive branch workers are further divided into three groups: general group (administration, research and technology), special group (prosecutors, teachers and diplomats) and contract workers.

The number of women in the executive branch comprised 33 percent of all government employees in 1998, and has steadily risen since. Many women have taken up posts formerly dominated by men.

Female prosecutors, for example, comprised a meager 1.6 percent of all prosecutors 10 years ago, but numbered 220 last year, or 13.6 percent.

In public security areas such as drug enforcement, and corrections or probation administration, the number of women increased from 825 (4.7 percent) to 2,080 (9.6 percent). Likewise, female diplomats numbered just 40 in 1998 (3.3 percent) but the figure is now 170 (11.9 percent).

Efforts to raise female participation in the public sector are believed to have contributed most to the phenomenon.

Last year, for instance, women comprised 45.2 percent of all new hires in the executive branch, almost double the 1998 figure of 23.4 percent.

ssoo@donga.com