To what extent are women represented in the National Assembly, where legislators make the law? Among the 299 lawmakers in the twenty-first National Assembly, 57 or 19.06% were women. South Korea ranked 121st among the 109 member countries of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and 36th among the 38 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Women only accounted for 35% of the staff who assist the legislators.

According to the data obtained from the National Assembly Secretariat on March 7, 65.9% (1,565) of the legislators’ staff were men and 34.1% (810) were women as of February, and the higher the position, the fewer the women.

A legislator can hire up to nine staff members: two aides (grade-4), two senior secretaries (grade-5), one secretary of each grade (grade 6, 7, 8, 9), and one intern. Higher grade staff members are responsible for decision-making, while the lower ranking staff, for assistance. When it came to secretaries (grades 6-9), relatively lower in grade, the gender gap was only 2.2% with 612 men (51.1%) and 584 women (48.9%). But among aides (grade 4) and senior secretaries (grade 5), there were over four times more men than women--953 men (80.8%) and 226 women (19.2%).

Did female legislators hire more female aides? A closer look according to the gender of the lawmaker revealed that female lawmakers hired 259 male staff (56.3%) and 201 (43.7%) female staff, a gap of 12.6%, whereas male lawmakers hired 1,306 male staff (68.2%) and only 609 female staff (31.8%), showing a gap of 36.4%. But when it came to senior aides (grades 4-5), the proportion of female aides was just as small in the office of female legislators as their male counterparts. Female aides grades five and higher were missing in the offices of seventeen female legislators (29.8%) and 116 male legislators (47.9%).

Experts call for more aggressive measures for gender diversity among the staff of lawmakers, considering the significance of the National Assembly. Shin Gyeong-a, a professor of sociology at Hallym University said, “The reason the National Assembly evades gender issues is because of such gender imbalance,” and argued, “The staff of legislators are the think-tank of the lawmakers, playing the role of creating laws and policies. Given that they should reflect the opinions of all citizens, having an equal number of men and women would be right.”