South Korea's gender equality improved slightly last year, but the equality level deteriorated when it comes to safety due to the recent rise of heinous crimes against women, a government report showed Thursday.
According to the 2012 report on Korea's gender equality by the Korean Women's Development Institute, the nation's equality index was 63.5 out of the full score of 100 for last year, up 0.3 points from 63.2 in 2010.
The index measures gender equality in eight major categories: family, welfare, health, economic activities, decision-making, education and job-training, culture-information and safety.
In the report commissioned by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, the equality score was the highest in the health category with 91.2 points followed by education and job training with 78.1 points and culture-information with 73.6 points. Economic activities and welfare also were sectors that grabbed relatively high points with 69.4 and 68.4.
But gender equality has greatly worsened in the safety field as the index fell by 3.4 points from 56.4 points in 2010 to 53 points.
The fall was attributed to the rise in sexual and other heinous crimes against women during the period.
Korean women were found to suffer mostly from inequality in decision-making processes, with the index in the sector only 19.3 points.
"The gender equality level has worsened in the decision-making sector as the rate of female managerial officials in private businesses declined despite the gradual improvement in the share of females among lawmakers and Grade 5 or higher-level government officials," a ministry official concerned with the report said.
The ministry said it plans to consider the report in its upcoming master plan on women's policies. (Yonhap News)
