Additional information about gender quotas

http://www.nec.go.kr (Republic of Korea National Election Commission)

The reform of the Political Party Law in 2000 resulted in an increase in the percentage of women elected in the April 2004 elections, rising to 13 per cent, up from 5.9 per cent in the previous elections. Parties that nominate female candidates for the national elections also receive subsidies (Article 26).

"The April (2020) election results show 57 women were elected (19 percent of the 300 seats in parliament), the highest ever since democratization in 1987. The ruling Democratic Party now has 30 female legislators, while the conservative opposition United Future Party has 18. Internationally, however, South Korea ranks 118th in terms of the share of women in the national legislature. South Korea’s National Assembly has two groups of representatives. Voters choose 253 district-level representatives, while 47 national-level seats are distributed proportional to each party’s vote share. Among the 57 female winners of this year’s election, 29 were elected as district-level members, making up 17 percent of the two major parties’ district winners. Since 2004, South Korea has had a 50 percent candidate gender quota for national-level seats. Each party ranks its national-tier candidates before the election, and the two major parties alternate male and female candidates on the list. This system explains why more than half of the newly elected national-level members are women. The 50 percent quota is a great way for political newcomers to start their first term, but they often have a hard time getting reelected. My analysis of 4,111 district-level legislative candidates between 2004 and 2016 in South Korea showed that 11 percent of female candidates were “quota members,” compared with only 1 percent of all male candidates. However, national-tier members have an almost identical chance of winning the district-level election as candidates with no national-level experience"  (Young-Im Lee / Washington Post 2020)