Graduate School of Development Studies

A Research Paper presented by:

Hunam LeeThe republic of Korea

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for obtaining the degree of

MASTERS OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

Specialization:[The Poverty Studies and Policy Analysis]

(POV)

Members of the examining committee:

Dr. Arjan de Haan (supervisor)

Dr. Andrew Fischer (Second Reader)

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THE PERSONNEL POLICY IN THE CIVIL SERVICE FOR INCLUSIVE SOCIETY IN KOREA AND IN THE

NETHERLANDS

The Hague, The NetherlandsNomvember , 2011

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Disclaimer:This document represents part of the author’s study programme while at the Institute of Social Studies. The views stated therein are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Institute.Research papers are not made available for circulation outside of the Institute.

Inquiries:

Postal address: Institute of Social StudiesP.O. Box 297762502 LT The HagueThe Netherlands

Location: Kortenaerkade 122518 AX The HagueThe Netherlands

Telephone: +31 70 426 0460

Fax: +31 70 426 0799

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ContentsList of Tables 5List of Figures 5List of Acronyms 6Abstract 7Chapter 1 Introduction 8Chapter 2 Literature review 112.1 Tracing the origin of AA in different countries 112.2 Affirmative action 14

The necessity of AA and its good intention 15The characteristics of affirmative action 15Underlying principal of reverse discrimination 17

2.3 Affirmative action and Diversity 19Origin of diversity and difference between AA and

DM 19Chapter 3 Balanced personnel policy in Korea 223.1 The context of BPP in Korea 22

Outline of BPP 233.2 BPP for gender equality 25

Target hiring for gender equality 25More women in managerial and higher position 27

Chapter 4 Group target policy in the Netherlands 304.1 Positive action in the Netherlands 30

The context of positive action 30Implementation of positive action in the Dutch Civil

Service 314.2 Diversity in the Dutch civil service 32

The context of diversity 324.3 Positive action in the Dutch legislative perspective 344.4 The political climate impacts the public policy 354.5 Gender Equality 36

Higher gender equality in the NL civil services 36Lower representation in the private sector 38

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Chapter 5 Findings 405.1 Political sensitiveness and the limitation of result

intervention 405.2 What make higher gender equality 42Chapter 6 Conclusion 46Reference 48

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Acknowledgements

I am thankful to my supervisor, Arjan de Haan for his sincere guidance in the course of the research. He has encouraged me to questioning myself what I want to and why. It helped me thinking more and read more, then I found that my interest into the research have become more increased. I am also deeply indebted to Andrew Fisher, my reader and convenor for his tremendous and unlimited support in a practical and academically spiritual manner. His research paper workshop and the intuitive guide greatly helped me how and where to start and his encouragement of ‘maturation of the research’ have inspired me further. I can not thank you enough.

I’d like to express my gratitude to Tenzin, his comment for my research acdemic support and friendship during study. The last but not least, without having full time househusband, I could not manage and complete my study. I have owed my husband as always.

I am also grateful for my Korean government to giving me an opportunity to study, broaden knowledge and sharpen thought.

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List of Tables

Table 1. Comparing three perspective on diversity in the workforce ２０

Table 2. Outline of BPP in Korea ２３

Table 3. The yearly inflow of women( the whole grade) in general service ２６

Table 4. Outcome of women target hiring (1996-2002) ２６

Table 5. Outcome of gender equality target hiring (2003-2009) ２７

Table 6. The proportion of women in the central government ( 2006-2009) ２８

Table 7. The proportion of women managers(above grade 5)in the central government( 2005-2009) ２８

Table 7. Positive action and Diversity in the Dutch civil service ３０

Table 8. The current state of the proportion of women, elderly and ethnic minorities in the public sector ３７

Table 9 Percentage of women per level in the Dutch civil service ３８

Table 10. The rate of maternity leave user in civil service in Korea ４３

List of Figures

Figure 1. Percentage of senior positions in central government filled by women ４２

Figure 2. Working hours in OECD ４３

Figure 3 Average working hours per year by central government employees ４４

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List of Acronyms

AA Affirmative actionBPP Balanced Personnel PolicyBZK Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en

KoninkrijksrelatiesDM Diversity ManagementETC Equal Treatment CommissionMOPAS Ministry of Public Administration and SecurityNL NetherlandsPA Positive Action

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Abstract

The research has attempted to explore the reasons of controversy and criticisms that affirmative action confronts in the course of the policy implementation. In spite of good intention pursuing substantive equality and social integration, affirmative action often encounters resistance that by providing special treatment towards deprived groups, it generates discriminations to non- target groups. Besides, the policy receives a criticism that benefits of the policy go to only a few recipients, leaving the major of target groups in the inferior situations. It is worth to examine that why the good will intention policy faces unintended consequence in order to make a better policy choice and effective implementation.

The study concludes that the characteristics of affirmative action themselves contain room for resistance and limitation for actual outcomes. The first nature of the policy is that it focuses on intervening in the result of competition with special measures in employment, without redressing the causes of deprived situation. The way of the policy approach generates backlash from people who believe the dominant social rule of the equal opportunity. Besides, as the policy copes with the results thus the actual outcome of the policy is low with a few recipients. The second nature of the policy is the sensitiveness to political climate. Dealing with the result by distribution within society requires moral support from people but the policy is often changed by political climate, it undermines its value as the equality policy.

KeywordsAffirmative action, positive action, balanced personnel policy, equality

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Chapter 1 Introduction

This research interest has been triggered from my working experience in the division of Balanced Personnel Policy within the civil service in the Ministry of Public Administration and Security in the South Korea (hereafter Korea). Balanced Personnel Policy (BPP), Korean policy language of affirmative action, is designed to promote full equality and more inclusive society. However, in spite of good will intention, BPP has been surrounded by controversies from not only opponents but also recipients and supporters.

In Korea, the government has expanded BPP extensively toward various target groups such as women, the disabled, local talents graduated from regions, science and engineer professionals, and technical talents from the policy adoption in 1989 until recently. It is viewed that those target groups have been underrepresented in the civil service due to unequal social structure, social prejudices and unbalanced economic development. Therefore, to increase the number of respective workforces in the civil service, the Korean government has adopted proactive approaches, which is BPP as a policy instrument. The programmes of the policy are target hiring for gender equality and timetable goal settings for more women in managerial position, target hiring and reserved internship programme for local talents, separate selection for the disabled and low income households, and reserved internship for technical talents graduated from technical high school. BPP for women and the disabled is widely seen in other countries’ practices by the languages of affirmative action, positive action and diversity but target groups of local talents and low income household are rarely found. When imbalance is witnessed between gender, between able bodies and non-able bodies, between the poor and the rich, and among regions, Korea has applied BPP mainly in recruitment stage to redress the disparity by using different forms of measures such as separate selection, target hiring and reserved internship.

From the policy adoption of the separate recruitment for the disabled in 1989 until recently, the groups of the target have been expanded and goal settings have also been

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increased steadily. However, in the course of implementing BPP, questions are raised. Basically, initial research questions raised from working experience are whether or not the way Korean government use BPP measure favourably and extensively is desirable. Because not only the share of the government employment is limited in terms of demand side but also BPP is often confronted backlash against differentiated treatment for target groups by non-target groups. To be specific, various reactions have been received from non-target groups, target groups and politicians. Some applicants make complaints that men could be victims of gender equality recruitment. A colleague expressed that some women in the top received preferential treatment in promotion that helps the women reached in the top position faster than men. Some politicians demand more ratios for low income households and criticize low outcomes of target hiring for local talents by which only a few recipients have produced. On the other hand, from the target groups sides in case of the disabled and low income households some show worries of stigma thus recipients mind exposing their beneficial status in recruitment. From the voices of the interest groups, the major resistance is the special treatment given for target groups causes discrimination for non- target groups by violating the individual right. Apart from backlash, the strong criticism BPP often facing is that, as mentioned above, the policy helps only a few recipients, leaving the majority of target group in the deprived situation.

Therefore, the paper will plan to seek reasons why resistance of reverse discrimination and criticism of low outcomes over AA arise, in spite of good will intention pursuing full equality and inclusive society. In an attempt to find the answer, the study will also investigate what are the characteristics of AA and how the characteristics affect the policy implementation. To better understand the policy, it is important to explore the natures of policy and it will help to reach the answer. Moreover, Korea and the NL are chosen as case study, the policy programmes for target groups in the civil service of both countries will be examined. In Korea, the government is greatly keen on learning from international experience, in particular in regard to developing social policy. Europe is considered much advanced in the field of social policy and among EU countries NL is chosen as case study because the NL is well known for small in size but wealthy and strong in

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compromising different social groups in productive ways. By examining and comparing two countries’ policy practices, the paper aims to gain insights which contribute to enhance BPP policy in South Korea. Besides comparing policy practices may help to see dynamics of policy upon the different political, social and economical context.

The structure of the paper will be as follows. The chapter 2 investigates the history of AA policy adoption in different countries such as China and Korea, India, the US, Nigeria and Malaysia. Exploring the origins of the policy in different countries will contribute to understand the characteristics of policy in practice. The policy is used sometimes as a political instrument for lessening inter-groups conflict and sometimes as means of promoting equality. The part will also discuss the characteristics of affirmative action and debates over it but also diversity management which is widely practiced in the US, and in NL and the EU countries. The chapter 3 and 4 will mainly focus on the context and practices of policy in two counties, BPP in Korea and, both positive action and diversity in the NL. The comparison will begin with examining the context of policy introduction in order to understand the background of policy adoption then outline the policy first with regard to objectives, target groups, forms of programmes. As women are the common target group in two countries, the comparison will focus mainly on women therefore situations of women in workplace and policy programmes increasing representation of women will be explored. In the chapter 5, high gender equality in the Dutch civil service and large share of women in part time work in the private sector will discussed compared to women in the Korean civil service. In the last part, the chapter 6 will conclude that the characteristics of AA dealing with the consequence of disparity not dealing with deep rooted causes(Taylor 2000 :171) will be pointed out as the major reason of generating resistance and the limited outcome of a few recipients.

The paper will focus more on AA in the government employment than in the private firms. In doing research, the paper looks into journal articles, academic research papers, government department policy reports and international organization working papers to investigate policy practices in various countries. In addition,

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participating Korean delegation’s study visit in June 2011to the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations, and the Dutch Equal Treatment Commission provides opportunities to access actual policy information and legislative perspective over positive action. Nevertheless, due to the constraint of language and lack of written information, the deeper reasons of the policy shift from positive action to diversity within the Dutch civil service are hard to be traced. In order to supplement the weak information on that part, the paper has included the trends and debate over positive action and diversity in the Dutch society as a whole.

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Chapter 2 Literature review

2.1 Tracing the origin of AA in different countries

It is often considered that the origin of AA is the US where the civil right movement of blacks further gained administrative support with President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8002 of 1941(Leonard 1989 : 62). However, AA was already practicised in India with the language of reservation. In India it was started in 1892 in education, in political representation in 1919 and in the civil service in 1946 (Sabbagh 2004 : 29). Although, as the origin of AA the US and India are often referred, the policy is also traced in China in 1425(Kim 2004), Myung Dynasty and Korea 17 century, Joseon Dynasty with regard to regional balanced hiring for public officials. This section does not intend to debate over which part of society started AA policy earlier, the purpose of introducing China and Korea case is to share the less known history of policy implementation due to language constraint in academic world. Including the origin of China and Korea in AA measures it seems that AA policy has a long history having been introduced into societies as a means of combating discrimination in the social movement side and reducing tension of inter-groups disparity in the political instrument side across the East and the West.

To be specific, in China open selection examination by meritocracy for public officials in the central government was established in Su Dynasty (in 587) and was institutionalized stably in Dang Dynasty. However, concentration of particular region’s human resources was significantly witnessed, thus in the beginning of Myung Dynasty quotas for regional human resources was introduced according to proportional population in regions (Kim 2004). Because of regional disparity in economy and culture, the deprived region continued to lag behind by less accessible to the political power (ibid). To lessen the tension from deprived region, the personnel policy of quotas for the deprived region was started (ibid). The open selection system in China was imported to Korea Dynasty and quota for regional human resources in selection of

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public officials was begun in 17C during Joseon Dynasty(Park 2001:82). Again in Korea in modern times, in the course of economic development, the gap between Seoul and regions has emerged as social issues with which the government needs to deal.

To understand the dynamics of the policy in different countries, the following section will examine the different background of policy adoption in India, the US, Nigeria and Malaysia. First, in India AA began under British colonial rule as a set of programmes designed for the advancement of lowest cast-the so-called untouchables. Initial adoption was in the field of education in which special schools were established on their behalf as early as 1892, then in the civil service, where in 1946, 12.6% percent of the vacancies were reserved for them to reflect their proportion in the population (Sabbagh 2004 : 29). Not only for education and government employment but also quota for political representation was introduced in 1919 and in 1950 the reserved seat for the Untouchables was enshrined in the Indian Constitution (ibid). In the constitution, Article 16(4) provides the grounds of reservation in the government employment for backwards class as follows:

Nothing in this Article shall prevent the State from making any provision for the appointments and post in favour of any backward class of citizens which in the opinion of the State is not adequately represented in the service under the State (Singh 1996: 81, cited in Arvind 2005 :147).

The reservation system in India seems to be used as a policy instrument to redress historically deep rooted discrimination caused by the caste system that prevents social integration for the nation’s development.

In Nigeria, from 1945 unbalanced bureaucratic appointments concerning ethno-regional composition in government agencies came to issues thus the ethno-regional lop-sided nature of Nigerian governance institutions needed to alter, thus in 1958 for the military recruitment and in 1976 for the cabinet quotas were introduced(Mustapha 2009 : 567). From 1994, AA gained more momentum because it was referred to as the federal character principle in Nigeria and the Federal Character

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Commission (FCC), a body charged with overseeing was set up (ibid., 561). In more detail, the northern zones are educationally disadvantaged relative to their share of the populations, which was started from the colonial period and still persists to this day (ibid). The regional exclusion overlapped with ethic and economic inequality generates conflict among inter-groups then Nigeria adopted AA to bridge the divisive society by power sharing (ibid).

Malaysia used quotas for Malaysian in civil service in order to increase the representation of Malaysian, for instance 4 Malays to every non-Malay in a recruitment ratio(Sabbagh 2004 : 4-8). As a result, the proportion of Malay sharply increased from 61.7 % in expatriates, 34.6 % in Malays and 3.6 in non-Malays in 1957 to no expatriates, 86.6% in Malays and 13.4 non-Malays(ibid). Malaysia uses AA not only in the public service but also education and business by which the government plans to uplift deprived position of Malaysian to reach the level of which non-Malay(Chinese) hold the position in society. Although, in terms of population Malay constitutes the majority of population, Chinese take dominant position in economy, for instance, in 1957, when Malaysia became independent, the Malays made up 62.1% in agriculture and only 10% in business(ibid). The visibility of economic inequality was significantly seen therefore Malay government enshrined the advancement of Malay in federal constitution in acticle 8(5) as follow :

the general principle of equality does not ban provisions for the advancement of Malays; in line with the compromise eventually reached wherein non-Malays, in return for receiving citizenship based on the principle of jus soli, agreed to having special rights conferred on the Malays in order to uplift their economic position(ibid., 5).

Malay used AA strongly to lift up the deprived position of Malays in the public service and educational institutions, scholarships, and business permits or licenses permits or licenses.

In the US in the 1960s, the civil right movement derived by black movement raised the issue of removing discrimination in the ground of colours, genders and

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ethnicity. However, it was regarded that increasing equality was not sufficient by combating discrimination because starting points of people in society were not equal, equal opportunity could not ensure equal results. So the US administrative in those years actively introduced proactive approach, AA. This means socially underrepresented groups need to receive special measures to better access toward full equality with political and moral supports. In the beginning of introduction stages, special measures took place in government contractors. In that stage, most of practices were providing encourage programmes such as pre-training and outreach programmes. In the 1970s, as the outcome of AA did not show satisfactory level, the form of policy changed into hard forms which were preferential treatments including quotas, timetable goal settings. From then on, AA has been widely perceived as preferential treatment that gives advantages to members of disadvantaged groups who are under qualified. The changed and hard forms of policy brought about debate of reverse discrimination from non -target groups. Opponents of AA argue that discriminates individuals of non-target groups by providing advantages in education and in employment for disadvantaged groups. Therefore, qualified candidates for posts are reversely discriminated by less qualified ones and this undermines the merit principle hence it is not fair. This debate often went to court. Debate on reverse discrimination will be explored in the later part more specifically.

However, the reasons of increasing backlash and decline of AA policy seems to happen not because of hard form implementation but because AA lost political support when in the 1980s the Republican Party gained political power (Erin and Frank 1998). Along with the change of political climate, the ideology of the dominant groups seems to spread over policy discourse in which the society is fair therefore special measures for certain groups discriminate non- target groups. However, in reality some social groups of people are limited to access economic and social resources, the groups are not standing equally at standing points. In spite of the existence in unequal social structure and deprived conditions, the notion of equal opportunity is predominately accepted as it works fairly. Offering different treatment for groups of people in different situation is seen as preferential treatment.

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From in the early 1980s, through Reagan administration, Bush administration and Clinton administration, AA gradually lost the political and legal support because of the changes of political climate (ibid). Afterwards, AA was retheorized into diversity management by Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)/ AA specialists, which mainly deals with business reason predicting changes of labour market population in the future (ibid). Some argue that diversity pursues the equality as AA did and becomes broader concept, conversely, some say that diversity management (DM) promotes valuing of individual difference as an organizational strategy and it is not concerned with remedying inequality (Carol and Catherine 1996, Elisabeth and Paul 1999, Glenda et al 2004). The debate on the characteristics of AA and DM will be discussed in the next section more detail. The languages of AA, PA and DM which explained above still are used interchangeably with the same policy in theory and policy practices whereas some theorists draw the line between the policies.

2.2 Affirmative action

Affirmative action is mainly used in the United States and positive action (PA) is mostly used in the UK, the Netherlands and throughout Europe. Europe prefers to make a distinction from American –style programmes (Bacchi 2004: 131). The dominant usage of PA has often been witnessed from many working papers and articles through literature review on the theory and policy. However, in spite of different terms, policy goals it pursues, practices it implements and resistances it confronts more or less similar. Discussion for the topic between two languages, AA and PA, this chapter will use the term AA in the general statement. The meaning of AA is defined as:

Affirmative action can be defined as attempts to make progress toward substantive rather than merely formal equality of opportunity for those groups such as women or racial minorities that are currently under presented in significant position in society by explicitly taking into

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account the defining characteristics –sex or race- which have been the base of discrimination (Mullen 1988: 244, cited in Crosby 1994: 15).

As it is expressed above, AA aims to ‘substantive equality’ for underrepresented groups in deprived situation but sometimes the policy is used as a political instrument to lessen the inter-groups conflict, without addressing the roots of unequal situation.

The necessity of AA and its good intention AA policy intends to end discrimination and inequality of excluded groups by systematic effort with legislative and administrative enforcement. There are different approaches like human right protection and economic empowerment and poverty alleviation in social policy. Different polices use different measures in order to bring better society. AA has mainly been implemented in higher education admission and, recruitment and promotion in employment .The paper intends to focus on AA policy in the field of government sector. Hence it will examine the necessity of AA in general and particularly the importance of AA in the government employment. Crosby argues the necessity of AA that racial and gender injustices persist thus the onus of recognizing and correcting injustice cannot fall on the victims of the injustice (1994: 22). She said instead victimized individuals come forward and protest on their own behalf, which seems a threat to one’s sense of invulnerability (ibid., 26), AA programmes needs to take systematic efforts by monitoring the situation and take measures to remedy it. Kellough (1992) also stresses the necessity of AA in the government employment. It is argued that AA is the equitable distribution of employment opportunities and a symbol of the nation’s commitment to end discrimination against minority and women ( ibid., 117). As the good exemplary model of the employer, the government needs influence the private corporations to concern social responsibility. In particular, AA policy in the government employment is concerned with representative bureaucracy( ibid., 122) pursuing the composition of workforce in the government mirrors the proportion of respective groups of population in society. It is considered that increasing the proportion of underrepresented groups such as women and minorities in

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the government sectors will make government more responsive to their interest ( ibid., 120).

The characteristics of affirmative actionThis section will identify the characteristics of AA, how the characteristics limit the extent of contribution of policy for reducing systemic discrimination, and face criticisms and doubts on policy effectiveness will be followed. The major characteristic is that AA policy is more sensitive to political climate. When the policy gains political support, it is implemented extensively with legislative and administrative enforcement, whereas when it loses political backup, the implementation is not only withdrawn but also face attacks (Erin and Frank 1998). This means that to better understand and analyze the policy, it is necessary to explore the political, economical and social context, because no policy in society is free from context, particularly from the political ideology. Thus it is worth to trace AA’s history, from origin, through development and till decline in the context.

In spite of the necessity as systematic efforts and nation’s commitment against discrimination (Kellough 1992), AA confronted debate and started to decline in the US. The major cause of decline seems to lie in losing political support from Reagan Administration, Bush administration and Clinton administration. Luisa Antonioli Deflorian describes how the change of political climate hit AA:

Political ideologies have undoubtedly played a major role in shaping public opinion on affirmative action: under pressure by powerful movements like the civil rights movement in the 1960 and 1970, it became widely accepted that formal equality was not enough, and that what was required were equal chances for all. But tide changed, and this political ideal gave way to more moderate positions, and sometimes even to political agnosticism, it became clear that the legal system moved in a rather different direction. It provided mechanisms to satisfy these exigencies, but it failed to provide a strong theoretical basis for them. Therefore, once the political impetus had petered out, the legal framework was unable to cope with attacks directed against affirmative action as

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workable and admissible legal tool. ….. the legal framework is extremely weak, and that its contribution to the solution of this problem seems almost entirely limited to giving a(not always) suitable form to a primarily political decision( 2000: 100-101).

As explained above, with losing political supports, AA also lost legal support and administrative enforcement to proceed, instead it had to confront strict scrutiny 1and curtailed ( Erin and Frank 1998). Now it seems apparent that AA policy heavily relies on political context in the US case.

There is the second important characteristic of AA. Paul pointed out that AA provides a way of dealing with the consequences of discrimination rather than dealing with the causes (2000 :171). The argument appears plausible to explain numerical goals for increasing representation as the characteristic and also it looks closely related to the limitation of the AA policy in several aspects. The characteristic of dealing with consequences (ibid) has been seen from implemented AA programmes. For example, in case of hard form, quotas and timetable goals have been practised to increase the presence of underrepresented groups. The implemented programmes have focused on numerical goals rather than dealing with the causes which generate structural discrimination.

Concerning the second characteristic of AA, it often faces criticism that AA does not significantly contribute to changing of attitudes and belief toward targeted groups and only help a few numbers of recipients. In spite of increased presence of disadvantaged groups, inferior and negative impressions placed on the excluded groups still persist. The weakness of AA, in this regard, becomes one of criticism as well as one of the grounds of diversity management on which raising awareness is focused. The

1 The strict scrutiny is the legal term in which regarding Adarand Constructors V. Pena(1995) case, the US Supreme Court suggested that every preference based on racial or ethnic criteria must be justified by a compelling governmental interest and be narrowly tailored. Since 1989, the Supreme court has required that state and local AA programmes pass the strict scrutiny

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second criticism raised is that AA only helps the creamy layer of the disadvantaged groups and the majority of the disadvantaged groups remain unsolved. Not only two criticisms but also the major debate of reverse discrimination link with the characteristics. As the debate of reverse discrimination is the major issue, this will be discussed in a separate section. Because of those weaknesses, the effectiveness of AA has been challenged as a means of remedying systemic inequality. It could be argued that the characteristic of AA dealing with consequences result in the low effects of policy. Without removing the causes of rooted inequality, repairing the surface of the result with special and proactive measures could not successfully and effectively raise awareness and lift up social mobility of the many deprived people. Kathleen Lynch(2007) also emphasizes that positive action has limitation to play a role in substantive sense in terms of promoting equality thus she suggests the importance of creating equal condition. However, it is necessary to note that pointing out the weakness of AA policy does not intend to completely deny the contribution of AA. AA itself has demonstrated the usefulness as policy instruments in terms of equitable distribution and a symbol of nation’s commitment (Kellough 1992 :117)as mentioned earlier.

Some research findings insist that AA has contributed to improve the situations in the disadvantaged groups. It is argued that AA polices really do increase the number of women and minorities in the sphere of education and employment from they were all but absent 30 ~ 40 years ago : that their presence has helped to change cultural beliefs about the capacities of these groups(Williams 2000: 78). For example, in terms of the effectiveness of AA policy, some research showed that its implementation contributed to reducing the income gap between employed Whites and African Americans in the US and also since 1970, women’s salaries and wages have increased much more rapidly than men’s salaries and wages (Crosby 1994: 27). However, other findings say that although minority and female employment has increased and gains have been made at the higher level but it cannot be certain the extent to which they can be attributed to AA is not clear in the federal employment (Kellough 1992: 130). The research concludes that political, economic, demographic and organizational factors influence the employment of women and minorities and may at times constrain the effectiveness of AA (ibid).

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Underlying principal of reverse discriminationThe major controversy over AA is reverse

discrimination. As witnessed from AA history in the US, AA is requested as proactive measures due to insufficiency of equal opportunity and through its growth, the approach of AA comes to deal with consequences. It seems that the reason of spreading reverse discrimination argument is largely caused by the changes of power group in political regime. The social groups who believe the principal of the equal opportunity and meritocracy tend to be against AA because the proactive approach would be seen as undermining of meritocracy. In this light, it is necessary to know what notion underlies in the view of arguing reverse discrimination. Opponents of AA argue that giving benefit members of the targeted groups reversely discriminates members of non- target group and in doing AA it undermines the merit principle in open competition. Qualified individuals are discriminated by under qualified individuals because of group based identity. The notion of reverse discrimination appears to link with viewpoint of believing equal opportunity. Eventually, the belief of equal opportunity is likely to deny the intervention of AA, as been discussed AA deals with the unequal result. When the opponents’ view is explored, it is seen that all people have the same access to social resources thus as opportunities are equally open to everybody in society, the merit principle works fairly. Therefore, special treatments of AA for certain groups violate individual right (McHarg and Nicolson 2006). At this point, inevitable tension arises because the characteristic of AA dealing with consequences intervene the process of selection in education admission and in employment. If the policy focuses more on removing causes of inequality, then the endeavour might help the deprived group of people more access to open equality with less backlash.

Whereas, proponents think social resources in society are not equally distributed thus some people are situated in disadvantaged position. People with limited access to the resources need to be treated differently(ibid). The advocates of AA view that equal opportunity is not sufficient thus pursue substantive equality. In tracing the ground of the merit principle, Croby contends that exposing meritocracy as an illusion threatens all who would like to

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see their own achievements as determined by merit alone, and criticize the illusion that individuals get what they deserve and deserve what they get(1994: 31). The disadvantages faced by its members are likely to be regarded as either due to their lack of ambition or efforts, or the inevitable consequences of a generally beneficial economic system( McHarg and Nicolson 2006: 20) . In the same vein, some theorists defy the notion of equality of opportunity:

Fair equality of opportunity, requires according to Rawls that those with similar abilities and skills should have similar life chances irrespective of income class into which they are born (Rawls 1971: 73, cited in Appelt 2000 :8)

It is also highlighted that fair equality of opportunity demands correction for socially relative disadvantage (Goldman 1979:171, cited in Appelt 2000 :8). As presented above, it is significant that to see the debate clearly, it is to examine what different views are embedded in, without investigating the root of different opinions, the debate would be empty discussion. In other words, ones argue reverse discrimination may intentionally or unintentionally do not see that there exists systematic discrimination which restricts access to open and equal opportunity, while supporters of AA intend to challenge the dominant social rules. Depending on how ones look society, the approach to remedy the social conflict would be different.

In practices the AA policy is widely and predominately surrounded within dominant groups’ paradigm of equal opportunity. In the US, in the European countries including the Netherlands and in the UK, AA policy has been implemented within not violating individual right with soft form, although the Korea admits quotas, AA programmes are carefully and technically designed not to damage the merit principle. It can be concluded that the opponents see that all individuals are equal to access to equal opportunities and believe that the merit principle works fairly to all ( Bacchi 2004, Crosby 1994, NcHarge and Nicolson 2006, Appelt 2000). Thus providing advantage toward targeted groups identified in disadvantaged situations undermines the meritocracy and fairness.

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2.3 Affirmative action and Diversity In the NL, diversity has been exercised around 2000 and positive action and diversity have operated mixed as a means of combating discrimination and as a business argument. Therefore, it is necessary to learn the origin of diversity and debate between AA and diversity management. Some argue that diversity is the higher level of AA and is the next generation of AA, while others look that diversity has distinct features which emphasize individual aspects and on business cases than structural inequality (Agocs and Burr 1996). It is meaningful to examine the birth of diversity and the debate, because the investigation will not only give insight of the weakness of the previously performed AA programmes, but also understanding diversity by comparing with AA will help policy choice and policy.

Origin of diversity and difference between AA and DM

As noted above, AA policy has declined since it lost political support from the 1980s’ Reagan administration (Kelly and Dobbin 1998). In spite of losing political and legal support and adverse persecution by curtailing, it has survived as business argument (ibid). Surviving of AA as the form of diversity is often explained by institutionalists that structure and practices develop inertia when members of the organization come to accept them as necessary and useful (ibid., 961). Another background of transforming from AA to DM presented is that Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)/AA specialists used the rhetoric of DM ideas to save their staff and programmes (ibid., 980). They repacked their programmes and made few changed apart from cutting some of the most proactive measures to expand the representation of minorities and women in the workforce (ibid). The birth of DM at any rate was related to AA whether it is extended AA or transformed with another purpose. It is meaningful to see the rise of DM. Whereas, the emergence of DM is explained as follows. Some claim that DM is an reaction against AA : a less controversial alternative to AA; complementary to a mandatory policy that is still needed as an antidote to inequality; a strategy for dealing with issues that AA left unaddressed.( Agocs and Burr 1996) With the reactions shown above, some theorist argue that DM is the next generation of AA but others are

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against it by presenting different goals and different programmes introduced by DM(ibid). To be specific, it is explained that DM was began as voluntary corporate approach, primarily a response to demographic changes which mean that there will be more diverse workforce in the future(Kelly and Dobbin 1998). As the decline of birth rate, increase of aging population, and white man were a shrinking proportion of worker, the labour force will encounter more diversified workforce such as women, elderly people and ethnic minorities, therefore organizations be prepared to construct cultures and attitude of embracing more diversified individuals rather than dominated white male able-body culture (ibid). The purpose of DM heavily relies on productivity by acknowledging different value of individuals and to meet organizational strategies, programmes for raising awareness and changing attitude are implemented (Agocs and Burr 1996, Strachan et al 2004). By examining the goals and programmes, ones argue that DM blursand hide systematic inequality by replacing discrimination in groups with difference in individuals (Agocs and Burr 1996) Moreover, within DM paradigm all individuals are targeted without concerning dominant position, including privileged male.

Table 1. Comparing three perspective on diversity in the workforce

Affirmative Action Diversity

Source Executive orders, federal regulations Human resource specialist

View of problem

Limited access, coupled with limited networks and skills

Organization loses out by requir-ing workers to assimilate to white male system

View of solu-tion

Targeted programme for recruitment, mentoring and training

Culture change efforts will re-move systematic institutional barriers

Concrete ef-fect

Minorities and women brought into moved up the pipeline unclear

Source : Partial data from Golembiewski(1996) and Yakura(1995), cited Kelly and Dobbin(1998)

It is necessary to examine that why HRM specialists prefer DM. There is an interesting finding to explain the reason that one is already shown earlier that DM is less controversial to AA, hence less resistance followed. Yakura’s statement could be used as evidence for it.

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Some observe might conclude that because “affirmative action has been at the center of a storm of controversy, it has been abandoned in favour of managing diversity. By focusing on managing diversity and its inclusion of all individuals, the tension created by the affirmative action debates can be ignored (Yakura 1995: 43, cited in Kelly and Dobbin 1998 :975).

On the other hand, looking at a reason of AA’s declining also gives an answer. When Reagan in office, he curtailed administrative enforcement of EEO (Euqual Employment Opportunity) and AA dramatically and appointed federal judges opposed to regulation in general and to AA in particular ( Kelly and Dobbin 1998 :967). From the evidence above, it is clear that the decline of AA generated by loss of administrative enforcement and legal support caused by the changes of political climate. Whereas, DM was invented by voluntary and business approach to be responsive to the demographic changes ( Kelly and Dobbin 1998). The explicit statement of DM by R. Roosevelt Thomas, an early diversity consultant who coined the term managing diversity illustrated the feature of DM (ibid). His 1990 Harvard Business Review article emphasized DM as the business case by stating ‘given the nature and scope of today’s competitive challenges I believe only business reasons will supply the necessary long-term motivation’ ( 1990/ 1994. 34, cited in ibid., 973).

Apart from the debate whether DM is the next generation of AA or has different directions, it is meaningful to find problem areas to which AA failed to pay attention. AA has focused heavily on numerical goals and has resulted in neglecting in an attempt to changing attitude and beliefs. AA and DM have distinct features but in practice two policies are often implemented with mixed intention and forms because diversity policy varies among countries. In the European countries, diversity is implemented as a means of combating discrimination. In the Netherlands, the national government implements diversity policy in order to meet the changes of labour market upon the employer’ interests recently (Frouws 2010).

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Chapter 3 Balanced personnel policy in Korea

3.1 The context of BPP in KoreaIn Korea, the name of AA policy is called Balanced Personnel Policy (BPP) as operational term, the language BPP does not seem to convey any partial connotation toward target groups and non-target groups as it displays neutral and balanced term. In this light, Korea chooses the policy term appropriately and ensures that the policy intends to balance without conveying the message of preferential treatment. It sounds that the policy pursues balancing from unbalanced situation.

This part shall examine the context of BPP in Korea, in what context the policy was introduced and has extended to more target groups. In Korea, the Gender Equal Employment Act established in 1987. Along with this momentum, introducing separate recruitment for the disabled were started in 1989 and setting up the personnel management guide for women in 1993 in the civil service, these initiatives are regarded as the adoption of BPP2(MOPAS 2010). In the beginning stage, the major target groups were women and the disabled. In the Korean government, BPP has been used as the policy instrument to increase the representation of groups in the civil service in pursuit of social equity and democracy (ibid). This means that by increasing the proportion of respective groups’ representation in the government sector, each group can represent the group interest in the state thus it contributes to social integration and democracy then finally national competitiveness will be enhanced (ibid).

From 1989 till the early 2000, the major target of BPP were women and the disabled, but through Participated administration (2002-2007) and Lee Myung Bak administrative(2008-2012), the target groups have been expended to local talents, science and engineer experts and low income household. The goals of each target group

2 Most of the information on BPP in Korea is drawn from BPP document in the Ministry of Public Administration and Security.

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become more developed to set higher goals and expanded from low functional level to higher functional level. As noted in the literature review, BPP in Korea is also significantly sensitive with political climate. The expansion of target groups and emergence of different groups has closely related to social, economic and political climate. When the Participated administration (2003~2007) came to office, BPP gained strong administrative support and the responsible body for BPP established in 2004 as the Participated administration pledged in the presidential campaign to address the problem of underrepresentation of local human resources in bureaucracy. Regional exclusion from economic development, political power and isolation from educational and cultural development had long been issue. Therefore it often came up in presidential campaign. The introduction of local talent within BPP policy was backed up by Participated Government(2003~2007), the emergence of low income household as a new target group took place by inauguration of Lee Myung Bak administration (2008 ~2012). The introduction of low income household was initiated mainly with economic reasons. Since 1998 economic crisis the middle class of society collapsed and the gap between the poor and the rich become wider and the polarization of society came up as an issue to be addressed. As policy consideration of providing economic independence in poor households, 1% quota in the lowest grade (grade 9) at the recruitment of the public servant was introduced in BPP (ibid).

Outline of BPP3

Table 2. Outline of BPP in Korea

Name of Policy Target Groups Objective Forms of implementation

Balanced Personnel Policy

WomenDisabledLocal TalentsLow Income Household

Increasing the number of target groups for social equity and democracy

Women : target hiring and timetable figure in managerial levelDisabled : separate selection with 6% quota ( grade 7 and 9)Local talents : internship(separate selec-tion), target hiringLow Income households : separate selec-tion with 1% quota in the grade 9(lowest)

Source: Researcher’s frame based on BPP manual(2010)

3 In this part, many sources of information of the role of BPP division, reactions and perceptions from the interest groups and issues are drawn from the researcher’s working experience in the BPP implementation.

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The BPP division in the ministry of Public Administration and Security has played an important role in promoting the representation of the deprived. The role of BPP division is to collect the data of proportion of groups from ministries and monitor the situation, and also evaluate BPP index of each ministry every year. Not only collecting, monitoring and evaluation the proportion of target groups but also the BPP division formulates mid -term strategy in order to increase the target groups population and advancement in position. Policy implementations focus mainly on hiring stage, exceptionally career advancement in gender equality, but in general it aims to achieve numerical figures. The criticism of focusing on numerical figures and its less attention of changing attitude and belief seem to found in the Korea case. The Ministry of Public Administration and Security plays a key role in planning, advertising and arranging hiring procedure in open competitive examination on behalf of the whole ministries. Its function makes it easy to managing the recruit system and implement balanced recruitment. It might be curious that unlike the Netherlands with ethnic minority issue, the US with race issue and the India with backward class, Korea is quite homogenous society with no ethnic and race issues. However, Korea has used and has expanded BPP instrument toward a wide range of deprived groups.

In Korea, with regard to the recruitment of civil servants, the article 26 of the national civil service Act says that the merit principle runs but as an exemption, proactive policy is admissible for the disabled, science and engineer professionals, low income households and substantive gender equality in recruitment, promotion and assigning position. With this legislative base, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security regulates the BPP guide which contains specific operation such as aims of policy, target groups, timetable figures and regular reporting the proportion of target groups. BPP in Korea also faces the debate over the merit principle and reverse discrimination as other countries are exposed in the same controversy. As presented above, the proactive measures are permitted as an exemption of the merit principle. Unlike the NL, the notable point in Korea is that, hard form of practices such as quotas and separate recruitment are implemented. In the NL, quotas are not allowed and even the preferential

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treatment is permissible with the matching ability. The separate recruitment which is operated in Korea as one form of hiring for BPP is that competition takes place among the designated groups separated with general applicants. As a result, the cut-off line of the disabled and low income house hold is decided lower than the general competition. However, the resistance of the reverse discrimination and violation of individual right do not seem to come up against the disable hiring. The resistance comes from target hiring in gender and local talents. The reason seems that target hiring of gender balance and local talents are operated within the same competition pool, it makes some non-target groups of applicants feel disadvantaged by being given the advantages for target groups. The phenomenon could be explained by two reasons. The first reason might be that the disabled are physically challenged because of the physical handicap, the disabled suffer to prepare for the exam than the able body, the assistance of BPP, so-called provision of advantage is acceptable. In Korea, to be hired as civil servants applicants has to pass the written examination and interview in open competition. Besides, concerning the difficulty and discrimination which the disabled confront in the labour market are deep thus the assistance seems acceptable.

Unlike BPP for the disabled, reactions of non- targets towards the target hiring gender equality and local talents are strong. Although non-target group applicants may recognize women and local job seekers, the competition is too high and they compete within scare resources, it generates fears of disadvantage, given the target groups with advantage. To avoid disadvantages of non-target group applicants and reverse discrimination argument, the target hiring scheme was carefully designed. To be specific, the target hiring scheme for gender balance and local talents provide extra recruitments when the scheme needs to function, therefore it is said that, as a result, non- target group applicants are not disadvantaged through BPP application in the recruitment.

To sum up, in Korea personnel policy in civil service operates within the merit principle but BPP as a proactive approach for deprived groups is adopted and is permitted as an exemption of the merit principle. Between the principle and exception, the recruitment scheme of BPP

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carefully is designed to reduce the resistance from non- target groups. Because of the limitation of the careful design, the limited implementation produces low outcome of a few recipients. Out of various target groups explained above, for the concrete comparison, the paper will focus on exploring gender, as it is the common target group in Korea and in the NL.

3.2 BPP for gender equality

Target hiring for gender equalityThere are two schemes in pursuing gender equality in the civil service. One is target hiring for balanced gender and the other is timetable figures in managerial level. These plans have been introduced as temporary measures and once the targeted figures were achieved, the next scheme toward higher grades and with higher targets has been followed. To be specific, from 1996 till 2002 target hiring for women was implemented, aiming 20% women hiring. In 2001, women’s ratio of hiring recorded already more than targets. In 2002, the women’s ratio in hiring were 48.6% in grade 9, 26.5% in grade 7, 26.5% foreign affairs service (grade 5), general service 28.4% . Then the ministry decided to change women’s target hiring to gender equality target hiring from 2003 till 2007. The gender equality target hiring extended again till 2012 and planed to apply both women and men, if one of gender does not reach 30%, the scheme does come into effects to promote gender balance. In designing target hiring, when the specific practices are looked into, it is easy to find that it made efforts to avoid reverse discrimination. As explained above, when situation of hiring is required the targeting schemes to application, provide extra number of recruitment in order not to fail members of non-target groups to achieve goals. Besides, not to cause the criticism of the merit principle, the schemes only applied target group applicants who record 2 ~-3 point lower cut -off line. By carefully designing two mechanism, the schemes justify that the recruitment runs on the basis of the merit principle and the individual right is not violated given support for target groups.

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Table 3. The yearly inflow of women( the whole grade) in general service

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Total 3,176 3,178 4,84

6 3,596 4,222 3,305 4,592 3,988 8,35

3 7,314 6,755

Women 586 554 1,202 994 1,305 1,13

6 1,613 1,586 3,225 3,308 3,196

Ratio(%) 18.5 17.4 24.8 27.6 30.9 34.4 35.1 39.8 38.6 45.2 47.3

Source : BPP manual(2010)

With regard to transition from women target hiring to gender equality target hiring, some debate occurred whether the target hiring should be aimed women or both gender. In the end of debate, it was concluded that both gender should be included. The ministry was concerned that men applicant raised issue of reverse discrimination against women. The ministry said that it was often argued that extra point for men who finish duty of army service was abolished in 2000 hence opportunity for the exams is equal to both gender (Choi 2006). Also it was argued by the min-istry that women were over-represented certain recruit-ment unit thus if the target hiring is applied only women, the policy would face backlash from men applicants. Men’s possible resistance and over representation in certain re-cruitment unit were took into account so that gender equal-ity target hiring including men was introduced in aiming gender balance of both in civil serve(ibid). The decision seems problematic when it is investigated. The objective of BPP is to promote women’s participation as the category of women is identified that women is located deprived position in society. Men are in dominant positions and men do not face discrimination over women. In Korean society, private firms favour hiring men over women. Relatively in the pub-lic sector, women meet less discrimination in the entry level rather than private sectors. That is the reason that women representation in the government sector has been in-creased. In this light, the decision of applying target hiring to both genders appears problematic. Without considering the background of inequality and discrimination, by looking partially in terms of quantity within the public sector, the policy came into effect. At that time in 2002, it is worth to note when gender equality target hiring decided to include men, there were only 5.5% women in managerial and higher position(above grade 5). Similar case is founded between the NL and EU regarding positive action. In case

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of NL, according to Equal Treatment Commission, PA in the NL is only applied to women not men, it is not symmetric because men are not the deprived group, while the EU law is symmetric formulation including majority groups like men included(ETC 2011). In this regard, PA in the NL ap-pears faithful to original principle as an equality policy.

Table 4. Outcome of women target hiring (1996-2002)

Year 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002Grade 5 3 6 5 2 7 3 11Grade 7 16 14 9 18 36 22 14Grade 9 Non target grade 20 43 34 58

Total 19 20 14 40 86 59 83Source : BPP manual(2010), Unit: number of persons

Table 5. Outcome of gender equality target hiring (2003-2009)

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Grade 5 3 4(3) 1 1(1) 1(1) 2 -Grade 7 19 9 10 20 16 8 5Grade 9 17(9) 4 6 9(1) 7(2) 5 3

Total 39(9) 17(3) 17 30(2) 24(3) 15 8Source : BPP manual(2010), * ( ) men, unit : number of persons

Table 4 and 5 show the number of recipients produced by target hiring schemes and it is used as figures of policy outcome. The figures may demonstrate the number of recipient of each year and changes in the number of recipients through yearly basis. From the figures, it can be seen that the number of recipients has declined dramatically from 2004, the necessity of the continuing implementation of target hiring has to be checked. This means 30% target hiring does not produce high number of recipients in recent years, without applying target hiring, 30 % gender balance already work automatically since the gender ratio of the final results is decided between 30% ~ 40%, therefore no policy intervention seems to be required. Therefore, in 2012 when the final year of implementation in target hiring for gender equality, all these factors should be thoroughly examined and decided on whether to end the target hiring or not.

According to Park and Kim (2006), the analysis of the

effects of AA is summarized that although from the late of 1990s women civil servants had increased apparently, it is not certain that the increasing representation of women in the civil service resulted from the direct effect of the target

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hiring. The outcomes seem to be derived from social and economic factors such as the rise of actual GDP and higher education of women (ibid., 199). The finding also expresses that even though target hiring have not brought the direct effect of growing women’s representation, the policy intention shown in pubic might have influenced in increasing the number of women in civil service indirectly(ibid).

More women in managerial and higher position

As the share of women in the entry stage had increased, in 2002 the 5-year plan for more women in managerial and higher position was started. Although the growing proportion of women had been seen, the representation of women become low as the function level goes up, in other words, the majority of women is situated in the lower level. If gender is presented divisively, men in the top and women in the bottom, it is another pattern of inequality in the organization. Therefore, in pursuit of lifting women’s upward mobility, the plan was set up.

As of 2001, the share of women in managerial and top position (above grade 5) was 4.8% and the plan targeted 10% until 2006. Then in 2006 it recorded 9.4%, the record was considered as the target was achieved. As the next stage, another 5 year plan for women in managerial and top position (above grade 4) established (MOPAS 2010). In 2006, the share of women above grade 5 was 5.4 %, and the plan targeted 10% until 2011.

Table 6. The proportion of women in the central government ( 2006-2009)

2006 2007 2008 2009

total women ratio total women ratio total women ratio total women ratio

99,488 22,665 22.8% 102,645 25,044 24.4% 107,800 28,096 26.1% 110,894 30,559 27.6%

Source : BPP manual(2010)

Table 7. The proportion of women managers(above grade 5)in the central government( 2005-2009)

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Persons 1,541 1,873 2,016 2,317 2,457

Ratio 8.4% 9.4% 10.0% 10.8% 11.3%

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Source : BPP manual(2010)

In Korea, timetable goal setting for career advancement of women in managerial and high position plays an important role in promoting gender equality within the civil service. In spite of raising awareness of importance of women’s representation in higher position, it still faces quite challenging barriers. In order to reach decision-making position, women need to develop various working experience particularly in the field of planning, personnel management and budgeting that are considered important tasks(Moon 2006: 130). However, there is a big obstacle women faced, which is the burden of child care and domestic work. Because of child care and domestic work, women experience career interruption or heavy burden when she needs to develop herself further career path. The same problem is widely recognized anywhere else in the world and the degree varies society to society. In Korea, child rearing and family matters are recognized heavily on women’s responsibility. It is seen that the situation of working mother hampers career advancement compared men’s. Not only this but also particularly the working culture of long work hours burdens women’s working and interfere developing competency by experiencing various and important tasks. Then these barriers locate women in the inferior situation in promotion. To improve the women’s situation in this aspect, constructing family friendly working environment has been initiated.

Increasing women’s representation in higher position does appear quite challenging, not simple as target hiring. One research showed that recipients of women in the higher position are viewed as beneficiaries who are not eligible to be promoted with their own ability (Moon and Choi 355-366). The research(KIPA and KWDI 2009) discussed that in some countries quotas for promotion and job post have been witnessed, however the major trend of policy is directed to constructing environments facilitating women’s career advancement. Within the BPP division, timetable goal for women in managerial and higher position tends to focus too much on result- oriented numerical figures is discussed and now the focus needs to be moved how to pave the way that supports women to have opportunities to develop competency for reaching decision making position. The self-evaluation of the BPP division of AA policy implementation in Korea expresses the same

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point discussed in the literature review as such the characteristic of AA which focuses on dealing with the consequences rather than the cause(Taylor 2000) and it contains limitation.

The BPP division has also endeavored to construct better family friendly work environment by increasing child allowance, including 1 year child care leave for men and women as working period and extension of child care leave from 1 year up to 3 years for women (although allowance is paid 1 year) and promoting substitutable workforce during child care leave to reduce the burden of absence. Although those improvements are quite significant progress, concerning loss of income and interruption of career during child care leave, constructing work-family life balance is more urgently required. The 2009 research (KIPA and KWDI) make suggestions that change needs to include men. It is also suggested that stimulating men to participate in child rearing by using Dady quota may help to reduce women’s burden. It could be one way of approach because it would contribute to change the stereotyped gender role by being able to demonstrate that child rearing is not the matter of women, when child rearing is related to men and both gender, it may help reduce disadvantages placed on women.

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Chapter 4 Group target policy in the Netherlands

Table 7. Positive action and Diversity in the Dutch civil service

Name of Pol-icy Target Groups Objective Forms of

implementation Period

Positive ac-tion

Womenethnic minoritiesthe handicapped

Increasing the number of target groups for promot-ing equality

Setting Target figuresPreferential hiring within matching ability 1977 ~2005

Diversity

Women, ethnic minoritieselderly(above 50),

Increasing the number of target groups for diverse workforce

Agenda-setting, com-munication, awareness raising, monitoring and networking

2006~ present

Source : Reseacher’s adaptation from 4BZK factsheet diversity policy(2011) and Bacchi (1996)

4.1 Positive action in the Netherlands

The context of positive action

In the NL, AA was introduced in the late 1970s but the language of the policy was positive discrimination. However, the terminology changed into positive action in the early 1980s in order to dilute strict and strong indication of policy ( Bacchi 1996). Around 2000, diversity policy emerged and positive action faded away. Recently, in the second half of 2010 the new government declared that positive action and diversity policy for women and ethnic minorities would be terminated (‘abolishment of positive action’ 2010). In examining target groups, in the stage of policy adoption the policy targeted women and later ethnic minorities was included, throughout policy implementation over time ethnic minorities has been a more extreme issue than gender equality. As presented earlier, the sensitiveness to political climate is witnessed. The positive action and diversity in the NL have been experienced growth and decline by changes of political ideology from

4 BZK is the Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties, which is the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations in the Netherlands. BZK is the responsible department of the civil service personnel policy.

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multi-culturalism to anti-immigrants sentiment in dealing with immigrant’s issue (Bleijenbergh 2010).

To be specific, affirmative action in the NL emerged as women’s issue first in the late 1970s as political agenda and in the 1980s ethnic minorities included, unlike the US where race came first women’s issue appeared afterwards ( Bacchi 1996). In terms of the Dutch ideology, in the 1960s and 1970s the model of male breadwinner and female housewife was predominate, which has links with religions both Calvinist and Catholic (Hondeghem et al 2002). The gender divisive idea was embedded in the majority of Dutch people, men in the work and women in the family as a desirable form. However, in the 1980s the Dutch government expressed concerns in the policy paper that increasing de-greening(fewer children) and simultaneously greying of society would generate the problem of funding the extensive welfare provision( Bacchi 1996). Due to the strength of the Christian Democratic Party and its commitment to traditional sex roles(Middendorp, 1991 :105, cited in Bacchi 1996 :124), any decision to integrate women into the labor force would always be tinged with ambivalence. Along with this, women’s movement in the NL influenced by Swedish and American, it affects that economic independence of women is a vital element for equality (Bacchi 1996). As women’s under-representation became a major issue, in 1976 the parliament passed the resolution calling for positive discrimination for women in the national service (ibid). Outshoorn provides explanation of less stricter formulation of positive discrimination in the Dutch civil service as follows:

In the government paper (Emancipatie, 1977) which formed the basis for equality policy for women, the demand for positive discrimination was formulated in terms of ‘temporary preferential hiring’, the ‘temporary’ making it sound less threatening. The paper emphasized that government would use this instrument with ‘reserve’ and declared itself against the use of quotas in the Civil Service (1991:110).

In 1983 the department of Internal Affairs, responsible for the Civil Service, finally came up with an positive action plan for women and several departments restored to a very

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mild form of preferential hiring by asking women specially to apply in their personnel advertisements(ibid., 114). In 1976, when the affirmative action imported from the US, the policy was named as positive discrimination in the NL but witnessing the unpopularity of quotas associated with AA in the US in the early 1980, the language was relabelled as positive action (ibid).

Implementation of positive action in the Dutch Civil Service

This part will discuss concrete policy practices that implemented in the civil service and will not include vague period of policy practice. In 1977, positive discrimination was introduced as agenda with as preferential hiring for women in the Dutch national administration but it seems that the actual policy implementation was not visible. In an attempt to trace the concrete positive action, it was found that in 1983, the Ministry of Home Affairs established positive action plan, it was mild form of preferential hiring which encouraged women to apply in their advertisements( Outshoorn 1991). In aiming at increasing the number of women and ethnic minorities, the Dutch government had Positive Action Bureau in the Ministry of Home Affair in order to implement the policy (Bacchi 1996). The Positive Action Bureau produced a hand book to promote the policy objectives that planed to increase the number of target groups and setting target figures for women, handicapped, and ethnic minorities in public administrations, however PA in the NL did not instruct hard targets and did not impose sanctions, besides it was implemented within matching ability (ibid). In sum, although positive action reforms were mild and weakly in the policy implementation, the initiative of its adaptation fitted nicely the government desire to increase women’s labour force participation(ibid., 126)

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4.2 Diversity in the Dutch civil service

The context of diversityWithin the Dutch civil service, the policy shift took place from positive action to diversity in 2006. It is hard to find reasons of policy shift in policy documents and academic papers due to lack of the Dutch language availability. Under the language limitation, a discovered reason is that after 2000 the Dutch government started to recognize that the organization’s interest responding the changes of diverse work force in the future labour market is likely to be more significant rather than merely helping disadvantaged groups ( BZK 2008 ). In 2005 the Dutch government gave up positive action and diversity policy adopted part of regular personnel policy. The rationales for diversity policy were expressed as follows:

After 2000 there has been a change in the way diversity is thought of within the central government, as a result of globalization and more and more obvious demographic developments and the effects thereof on the labour market. The ageing, the share of ethnic minorities is increasing as is their educational level, especially among the younger age groups. Moreover, a significant share of future supply of labour is women. As a result, for the first time diversity is put on the agenda as a necessity for employers. Moreover, matters such as image and reputation come into play. The ‘business case’ view on diversity first applied to the private sector, but now within the government as well there became more and more attention for the organizational interests of a diverse workforce (Frouws 2010)

The rationales for diversity policy in the Dutch government above shown apparently demonstrate diversity policy as business case. The target groups of diversity are women, ethnic minorities and elderly (above 50), from which it is easy to catch that the policy focuses on the changing work force in the labour market. In many academic papers and working reports discussing positive action and diversity policy among the European countries, both polices are interchangeably perceived as instruments of promoting equality and combating discrimination. However, diversity in the Dutch government clearly holds

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business argument. Moreover, diversity in the Dutch government seems to be considered as more broader concept of positive action, by being viewed dealing with labour market communication, recruitment, selection, career path policy, terms of employment, education and organizational culture in integrated way (ibid)

In the NL civil service since 2006, the operational policy language is diversity. Not only the policy term but also targets, objectives and programmes are fitted to the characteristics of diversity management which shown in the literature earlier. The beginning of diversity in the civil service in the NL is explained in the country report conducted in the 2010 by Frouws in the 5Research voor Beleid as:

Diversity policy is embedded in the 2007 Coalition agreement/Policy program of the Cabinet Balkenede Ⅳ. Since 2006 the yearly Memorandum on Labour Affairs of the Government includes a chapter on diversity and the central government intergrated diversity principle into the HRM system of the public sector (2010 :5).

It is said that in 2005 the NL government gave up AA since diversity was regarded as part of regular personnel policy in which there is room for differences between employees and in which these differences are effectively made use of (ibid., 9). This means that diversity policy is focused not on inequality and discrimination but on differences of employees. In introducing the diversity policy within the civil service, the government was mainly concerned with changing workforce caused by low rate of child birth and aging population (ibid). When seen in the target groups of policy which is women, elderly above 50 and ethnic minorities, it is clear that the NL’s diversity is significantly linked with responding and accommodating diverse workforce as business argument. The diversity programmes conducted are more concerned with communication, awareness raising and valuing difference

5 Research voor Beleid is a research group and it conducted country report of the Netherlands with the title of ‘international comparison of diversity policy in the public sector’. It was reported 24 June 2010 and financed by the Dutch Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations.

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distinguished by Kelly and Dobbin (1998) in earlier. However, diversity in NL civil service practised similar forms of AA to achieve the aim of diversity. It had timetable figures which enable to increase the proportion of the target groups and operate collecting data, monitoring and measuring the progress with diversity index until the first half of 2010. As the sensitiveness of the policy with political context presented above, the new Dutch government inaugurated the second half of 2010 proclaimed that the government would terminate all activities and programmes concerning positive action and diversity policies on the ground of race/ethnicity and gender(‘abolishment of positive action’ 2010). Through personal communication (Hella van de velde, on 31 August 2011) with the responsible staff of diversity policy in the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations, numerical figures will no longer be exercised and the publicity of diversity policy will be slow down but the necessity of diversity has agreed with the new cabinet in terms of the employer’s interest responding changing labour market. Thus diversity will be continued inside the government as the business argument without numerical goals and an active publicity.

4.3 6Positive action in the Dutch legislative perspective

As a legal term, positive action is still used the Equal Treatment Commission (ETC) in the Netherlands, however diversity policy which is practiced in the NL civil service differs from legal approach in the ETC. Diversity is implemented as business case of the employer’s interest and PA is concerned with equality basis. PA is allowed only within the matching ability as a soft form, for the disadvantaged groups of women, ethnic minorities and disabled and sick people ( 2011 ETC presentation). Only three target groups are permissible to PA application because, those three groups are identified as being in the disadvantaged position. In spite that the recognition of the disadvantaged position and permission of PA, the permission is only applied in case of the matching ability with job description requirement and quotas is prohibited.

6 The most of source of positive action in the Dutch legislative perspective is acquired from ETC presentation for Korean Study Visit Group on 30 June 2011. The researcher joined the study visit.

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Because conducting PA is not an obligation but optional, even though the law permits PA, employers are reluctant to exercise due to strict limitation according to Equal Treatment Commission( ibid).

It may be interesting to compare among legislation how law views PA differently. As stated above, the Dutch Equal Treatment on PA is applied asymmetric formulation, to be specific, it do not allow to be used for dominant groups. Unlike the Dutch Equal Treatment, EU Equal Directives is applied to majority groups as symmetric formulation. Furthermore, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) permit positive action including quota and view it is necessary to reduce the disadvantaged situation (ibid). By comparing different legislative approach, it is considered that the Dutch Equal Treatment on PA appears more faithful with the original intention rather than EU Equal Directives as the Dutch focus on the inferior position of the target groups. The second insight is that the legislation itself seems the reflection of the dominant groups’ beliefs and accordingly the degree of permission is different society to society and also different within society overtime.

In the Netherlands case, it is emphasized that PA measures cannot reduce the disadvantaged position of the ethnic minority in a substantial way because the disadvantage is caused by many different circumstances, including invisible processes and attitude (Kang You and Mulder 2000). Thus PA must be seen in the broader scope as promoting the proper functioning of a multicultural society (ibid., 182). Not only them but also workshop participants in the research conducted in the 2009 in the Netherlands concluded that to be effective and successful in the long term, PA has to be implemented as part of a multi-angled strategy, as single strategy it could never be less successful(PAMECUS Series: Volume 3 2009:51).

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4.4 The political climate impacts the public policy

Apart from positive action and diversity within the Dutch Civil Service, with regard to legislation the Employment Equity Act plays the important role promoting participation of ethnic minorities in the labour market. In 1994 the first Employment Equity Act came to effect and the Act said that employers with more than 35 employees were required to register employee’s ethnicity and report target figures. The Act planed to increase the number of workers having a migrant background. Employers were highly resistant to this legislation and the rate of full compliance was 14%(Kang You and Mulder 2000: 176). The Act allowed preferential treatment on the basis of race however it only permits if the candidates are equally suited to the task. In 1998 the Employment of Minorities (Promotion) Act(the Wet Stimulering arbeidsdeelame minderheden) entered into force and the Act laid down legal obligation to register data. The Employment of Minorities Act was expired in December 2003 and the Dutch government announced that compliance is high and the duty to report is at odds with the aim to diminish red tapes (Engelen 2005: 12, cited in Dhami et al 2006 : 46). In its place the government proposes a set of voluntary measures aimed at facilitating private initiatives, including ‘diversity contracts’ with employer organization, the establishment of a national ‘Center for the management of diversity’ (Dhami et al 2006 : 46). In spite of the formal announcement of the policy shift from positive action with legislative support to diversity with voluntary measure, the abolishment of the Employment of Minorities Promotion Act( the Wet Samen) was more likely to be related to political context in the NL.

The change seems to have happened by the incidents of two political murders. The first incidence in 2002 is the death of Pim fortuyn, the party leader of a right-wing political party, who expressed that Islam poses threats to the liberal value of Dutch society (Bleijenbergh 2010). The second one occurred in 2004, a filmmaker who outspoken and described Islamic culture as backward in the movie(ibid). With those incidents, political parties in the middle of the political spectrum, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats have increasingly become negative toward immigrants (ibid). Moreover, in 2010 the new cabinet declared that positive action and diversity for

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women and ethnic minority would be abolished(‘ abolish of positive action’ 2010). It appears that the changes of the political climate provoked by the political murders hit not only the whole Dutch society but also within the government itself. As seen above, with the evidence of the US, Korea and the Netherlands, it is apparent that AA policy’s ups and downs are significantly related with political and social context. Particularly, in the US AA is mainly concerned with race and the Netherlands with ethnic minority of immigrants. In this regard, Korea is very much homogenous with not having race issues and immigrants problems yet, and mainly involved with gender equality and regional unbalance.

4.5 Gender Equality

Higher gender equality in the NL civil servicesThe NL government had formulated 2011 target figures with regard to diversity with the civil service as shown table 8 but as explained above, as the new cabinet strongly against diversity and positive action, the numerical goals were abolished but will continue diversity as the employer’s interest. It is presented that aiming at more diversity is justified: as a public interest in terms of quality of government and relations with government and society; as employers interest in terms of connection with the current and future labour market; as a political interest in the perspective of legitimacy of government and argument of justice and integration ( 7Hella van de Velder’s presentation 2011) . In doing so, the ministry of interior conducts stimulating and facilitating the entire sector to do exchange knowledge and practices and agenda setting, communication, awareness raising, initiating research and monitoring progress (ibid). As innovative instruments ‘Ambassador Network’ has been implemented and through the Ambassador Network, top managers from respective ministry join the network and top managers act as diversity

7 The title of presentation is ‘the Dutch national administration as a social responsible employer : polices on diversity ‘and it was presented for Korean study visit group in the Ministry of Interior and Kingdoms relations on 28 June 2011. The researcher attended the presentation.

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promoters within their ministry(ibid). Here it is considered that top managers could play an important role to deliver the organizational culture because their positions have impacts to bring changes (ibid). Unlike Korean civil service relatively centralised, the ministries in the NL run human resource management independently and the recruitment procedures are arranged with resume and interviews. Therefore the Ministry of Interior and Kingdoms strives to stimulate respective ministries to cooperate the objectives of diversity. It is worth to see that in the 2008 policy review, the first point is the limitation of diversity policy and the concern is :

It is noticed that instruments and activities are mainly small scale, project-like and temporary, while the causes for the problem are structural and complex. As a result, the instruments and activities could only provide a small contribution to solving the problem. However, this is explicable because part of the causes for the problem is outside the sphere of influence of the government as employer (Frouws 2010: 22).

This shows that as stated in the literature, although diversity in the NL civil service does not aims to redress inequality and focus on increasing representation of diverse workforce, the policy encounters the same problems as AA faces. It is believed that diversity with numerical goal to increase the representation of diverse workforce also deals with not causes but results, the limitation of low outcomes is witnessed, too.

Table 8. The current state of the proportion of women, elderly and ethnic minorities in the public sector

2006 2007 2008

Proportion of women in inflow 57 58 59

Proportion of women in flow in top positions 31 31 43

Proportion of ethnic minorities 5.5 5.6 5.9

Outflow of employee over 50 years of age 4.4 3.7 3.6

Source: House of Representatives. Labour Government 2010 Annual Meeting, Trend note, Unit : %

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Table 9 Percentage of women per level in the Dutch civil service

As seen the table 8 inflows of women has been increased 57% in 2006, 58% 2007and 59% in 2008, and according to the presentation of the Ministry of Interior and Kingdoms in June 2011, almost 60% starters are women and 42.5 % of the workforce are women and there are 25% women in higher ranks. The proportion of women in inflow in top position recorded 43%. It is viewed as significantly positive trend that not only the proportion of inflow as starters is increased but also inflows in top position is quite notable as 31 % in 2006, 31% in 2007 and 43% in 2008. When it is compared to women in civil service in Korea, the level of gender equality in civil service in NL looks greatly high. In Korea, women inflow in starters was 43% in 2009, women in managerial position (above grade 4) 6.8% 2009 and women in the top position 2.8% in 2009(MOPAS 2010). In terms of the proportion of women, Korea and NL looks in the stable situation but when seen in decision-making position at the higher level, it is looked that Korea still has a long way to go. It is worth to investigate what factors are contributed to achieve higher gender equality in NL. It is assumed that workers(women and men) in NL have work life balance in working hour arrangement and it helps women’s upward mobility in the organization, while long hour work culture in Korea may hampers work life balance for both women and men, it adds more double burden to Korean women than NL women. This point will be discussed more detail in the following chapter.

Lower representation in the private sector

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In NL, the ethnic minorities are significant issue rather than gender equality. However, the ethnic minorities are not the present issue yet in Korea, this paper focuses on the comparison of women’s situation in Korea and NL. In spite of quite progressed women’s position in the civil service, society as a whole NL has also struggled because the highest number of women has been located in the part time work. According to OECD (2011) employment rate in 2009 men 90.7% and women 79.6% but part time employment men 6.0 % and women 55.5%. As more women are situated in the part time work, the representation of women in the managerial level may be apparently low. To be specific, al-though 26% of managers in the for-profit sector are women, women comprise only 7% of the top positions in the busi-ness in 2007( Merens and Hermans 2009, cited in Bleijen-bergh et al. 2010: 181). It was pointed out that according to the European Foundation of Living and working Conditions, with a gender wage gap of 20% the NL is among the group of countries with the highest gender wage gap in Europe and the labour market position of migrant women is on av-erage worse than that of native Dutch women(ibid). It is ex-plained that historically strong motherhood ideology(van Engen et al. 2009 cited in Bleijenbergh et al. 2010)linked with Catholic, still is attached to gender relations, work life balance might reinforce traditional gender role and it looks risky if work life balance and flexible work hour arrange-ment are viewed as only women’s issue. It has continuously impacted inferior position and gender divisive labour mar-ket structure such as more women in the part time work and lower position.

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Chapter 5 Findings

5.1 Political sensitiveness and the limitation of result intervention

As the context of Korea and the NL vary, the absolute comparison of group targeted policy appears hard to manageable. Nevertheless, the paper shall attempt to find useful insights with consideration of the different context. This part will discuss two important findings, the first one is BPP in Korea and positive action and diversity in the NL have experienced the policy changes derived by the political climate. Secondly, as AA is the policy coping with the results, the nature of the policy produces low outcomes. In particular, it will discuss that the higher gender equality in the NL civil service than Korea is the achievement of removing the barriers of women’s career advancement by better work life balance.

As presented earlier, the policy language, objectives, target groups and programmes are different between Korea and NL recently. Korea has been implementing AA with the language of Balanced Personnel Policy aiming at improving social equity and democracy by increasing representation of deprived groups in 1993 by the establishment of women’s personnel management guide and quota (separate recruitment) for disabled in 1989. During the participated administration (2003 ~ 2007), the policy become more active by setting up the responsible unit under the HRM bureau and has extended more target groups such as local talents significantly and, science and engineering professionals were introduced within BPP. The group of low income households is added in the current administration (2008~2012)concerning the growing gap of economic exclusion.

Whereas, in the NL the policy has experienced different changes compared to the Korea case. With the labelling of positive discrimination, it started the late 1970 by impact of women’s movement and 1980s for ethnic minorities. By relabeling as positive action in 1980s then changed to diversity in the civil service in 2006, at this moment due to the impact of political climate, even diversity becomes thinner. In the NL, unlike Korea, the issue of ethnic

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minorities is more serious and sensitive than gender in the political contexts, as a result the political climate of anti- immigrants sentiment hits gender, too, because gender equality is included under the same policy category. In the 1980s, the Dutch society was directed to multiculturalism in the ethnic and cultural background minorities but with the incidence of political murder, cultural conflict and increasing unemployment rate in the non-Dutch population, due to those mixed and complex situations, anti-sentiment of immigrant has aroused. As such, it can be found that while the contents and forms of policy are different between two countries, the policy is closely related to the social, economic and political context in each country.

Secondly, the policy has been implemented in aiming at increasing the representation of underrepresented groups both countries, the criticisms also have been raised about the effectiveness both countries. As pointed as the characteristics and limitation of AA, the policy deals with the consequences, not deal with the causes(Taylor 2000). The problems have been seen in the performance of focusing on numerical figures. As the way dealing with the consequences, within the dominant language perception AA as preferential treatment for the undeserved candidates has widely known. It causes the negative reactions such as stigmatization toward the target groups and backlash of reverse discrimination. Those reactions have been witnessed both countries although the resistance vary depending on the level of deprivation, the nature of target groups and the magnitude of support. In short, in spite that the policy intends good will, the characteristics of the policy dealing with the result constrains the range of implementation thus a few recipients of the target groups produced.

With regard to local talent in the Korea, each year 50~70 places are reserved to local talents recruited by internship program, can it is considered that the small number of recipients effectively redress so many young job seeker in the region?. Not only for this when increasing places from 60 to 70 for local talents, there was backlash arouse, non- target groups of applicants showed concerns that giving more places may take up scarce resource of non-target groups places (Seoul Shinmun 2010). Furthermore, in the target hiring for local talents(20% within cut-off line -1~ -2, non-Seoul graduates), average

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number of recipients each year is 2~3 persons in the final stage through all the process of documentation screening in order to confirm the eligibility of local graduates.

In case of low income households seems more extreme to local talents. The policy aims at economic independence of low income household by providing with jobs which is 1% quota in the lowest level The number of recipients - 22 persons in 2009 and 12 persons in 2010( MOPAS 2011)- is small because it needs to be designed within the merit principle, hence 1% in the lowest level is decided as the minimal range. Could it be regarded that it effects to remedy economic exclusion?. Although the policy might have the symbolic value showing intention of political will to redress the issue of unbalanced development and to the alleviation of economic gap, the characteristics of the policy limits the outcome of the policy effectiveness. Therefore, as it is recommended earlier, multi- strategies are required to redress the systemic discrimination. Not only the low outcomes in terms of the number of recipients, there has been another criticism raised that as the policy focus on the increasing the proportion of the underrepresented groups, the attitude and beliefs placed on the disadvantaged groups are not corrected and persist.

5.2 What make higher gender equalityFigure 1. Percentage of senior positions in central government filled by women

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It is often pointed that in Korea women in the higher position are seriously underrepresented compared to other countries as shown figure 1. Therefore, the case of the NL women within the civil service shows important findings to the Korea. Comparing the situation of women, the Dutch women within the civil service displays the higher gender equality. It is plausible to explain that the better work life balance with short full time work contributes the higher gender equality in the civil service in NL. As discussed earlier, in order to promote substantive equality, the causes of inequality need to deal. With regard to gender equality, barriers of women’s career advancement is considered as the burden of childcare, therefore desirable working hours enables women to improve their position(European Commission 2009)

In spite of the situation of growing proportion of women’ inflow in the entry level, the proportion of women in the managerial and top position is still low in Korea. It is widely acknowledged that women have double burden with child rearing and domestic work and particularly child birth and rearing cause interruption of women’s career in contrast to men’s. The rate of using childcare leave in the table 11, the gap can be seen as one of evidences of more interruption of women’s career advancement. Although slight increase of men’ user in childcare leaves are seen on the table, still the rate of women is predominated.

Table 10. The rate of maternity leave user in civil service in Korea

2006 2007 2008 2009

Total women men Total wome

n men Total women men Total l wome

n men

Eligible parents

28,797 5,507 23,29

027,38

2 7,188 20,194

56,919

11,558

45,361

59,382

12,085

47,297

No.Users 1,251 1,115 136 1,723 1,600 123 2,843 2,547 296 3,342 2,956 386

% 4.3 20.2 0.6 6.3 22.3 0.6 5.0 22.0 0.7 5.6 24.5 0.8Source : BPP manual(2010)

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The commonality of double burden with child rearing and unpaid domestic work exist among women both countries, however it seems that the better situation of work life balance in the NL civil service enables the upward mobility to the decision- making position. The Korea has extremely long hours work culture that has been maintained as dominant model of single male breadwinner supported with women’s unpaid childcare and domestic work.

Figure 2. Working hours in OECD

As shown Figure 2 and 3 people in Korea work long hours compared to NL as both societies as a whole and in the central government. Moreover, it is also released that the long work hours in Korea does not lead to the level of productivity. The private life and family life shows significant subordination under work. The long hours work culture places another barrier to hinder women’s carrier advancement. To be promoted higher position, women need to accumulate work experience in various and significant job post such as planning, personnel policy and budget which require unplanned overtime work hours.

Figure 3 Average working hours per year by central government employees

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Not only child care and domestic work but also the extremely long work hours barriers women’s carrier development. As an adverse effect of the difficulty of combining work life balance, it seems to contribute the sharp decline of low birth rate in Korea. If long hours work culture and double burden on women’s shoulder are not properly and timely addressed, the underrepresentation in the managerial and higher position remain unimproved and another social problem of the low birth rate(8Korea 1.2 % in 2009, NL 1.8% in 2009) may be worse, it looks already becoming the growing concern.

In spite of the higher gender equality within the NL civil service, the low proportion of women in the top position in the private sector is witnessed. In the course of investigating the large share of women located in the part time work, there are interesting reasons founded. First, as mention before, due to religious faith of both Calvinist and Catholic (Van Engen et al., 2009, cited in Bleijenbergh et al 2010), women and people consider child care done by women is more desirable. Secondly, the NL is relatively affluent society thus the family model of 1 full time male and 1/2 part time female possibly sustain a household economy (den Dulk 2005). Thirdly, not only those reasons explained above, the working condition of part time is well protected then employers have to provide equal treatment as full time workers. Den bulk shows concern :

8 OECD(2010b), OECD family database55

‘part-time employment is likely to remain dominant among women when the cost of living does not require two full-time incomes, when part-time jobs are available, when childcare facilities are expensive and considered to be undesirable on a full-time basis, and when parental leave remains unpaid(2005 : 4 ).

The problem of the large share of women situated in the part time job in the NL is that it hinders women’s career development. In spite of the situation, women with higher education are more likely to choose full time and longer part time after the first child birth (Emancipatemonitor 2010). Unlike the NL, women in Korea are compelled to work for income, besides part time work is not well protected by employment entitlement. Women in Korea are also considered to manage the responsibility of child care. However, financial reasons looks more compelling Korean women, women are urged to enter the labour market. Coupled with the reasons, long hours work culture leads the whole family life to be subordinated under work. It seems that the surrounding pressures that women suffered are very likely to contributing to the decline of birth rate.

In sum, in spite of low gender equality in the private sector in the NL, within the civil service gender equality demonstrates high record compared to Korean civil service. It can be concluded that securing of work life balance with shorter full time in NL contributes to reduce barriers of women’s career advancement. In spite that there are growing number of women in the inflow of workforce within the civil service by higher education, at the moment of career development, child care responsibility is put heavily on women’s shoulder. Together with the burden of child care, long hours work culture gives more pressure working mother. The pressure locates women to marginalized positions and is a major barrier preventing women from working in the important positions which demand unplanned over time work. Therefore, to increase women’s representation in the managerial position, long hours work culture needs to alter. However, it is necessary to note that if it is promoted and targeted only for women, it may contribute another pattern of gender inequality as witnessed in the NL private sector.

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Chapter 6 Conclusion

The paper has attempted to find the reasons why the resistances and criticisms over AA are generated in spite of good intention in pursuit of substantive equality and social integration. To answer the questions, the origin of AA, policy adoption in several countries, theoretical background and debate have been examined and the efforts have contributed to look into the characteristics of AA. Finally, it is found that the characteristics of AA themselves contain room for resistance and the limitation of actual outcomes of lifting up deprived groups. Then finding the characteristics of AA help understand and analyze actual practices in Korea and in the NL. To see actual cases of policy, the paper plans comparative perspective with Korea and the NL. Comparative approach significantly evokes interests into research and provides opportunities to see the dynamics of policy in respective countries. Besides, doing the comparative research helps broaden the researcher’s scope of policy that is heavily associated with the political, social and economical context of countries. Public polices does not stand alone without the context although quality of designing and implementation itself is important.

The research questions have found the answers that the characteristics of AA, the way of intervening results and its political sensitiveness of policy instrument seem to be closely related to the resistances and criticisms. To be specific, first and foremost, AA is the policy of intervening the results rather than the causes. Deep rooted inequality remains without being redressed, the way of fixing the unequal results with special measures comes to produce not only backlash of reverse discrimination from non- target groups but also limited recipients, leaving large number of target groups in deprived situations. When the political ideology of equal opportunity and fairness of meritocracy is dominant, the belief without a doubt generates the conflict with proactive measures. However, AA is one instrument of equality policy, it could be argued that AA has symbolic value but in terms of actual effectiveness it shows limitation. In order to promote more actual outcome, putting efforts more on creating equal condition by removing the causes of discrimination appears more effective. Secondly, significant characteristic of AA is that

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the policy has experienced ups and downs by political climate and that seems to undermine the value of AA as an equality policy. As discussed above, because AA is intervention to the result so that it requires moral supports from society. Nevertheless, as witnessed from Korea and the NL, the political power group often use AA as policy instrument to gain political support. In the NL, diversity policy seems closer to be abolished because the dominant political party withdrew it due to growing anti-immigrants sentiments. In Korea, new target groups have emerged whenever the presidential election comes up. As such, political sensitiveness of AA appears to undermine AA value as an equality policy, moreover it intensifies the resistance and criticisms against it.

As the paper has focused on policy study therefore it is worth to making a few suggestions that contribute to improving gender equality within Korean civil service. Through the research, it is found that to promote substantive equality, AA has limitation to bring large outcomes actually in spite of its symbolic value. In this light, the policy attention needs to be shift from numerical goal setting to redress the barriers of career advancement.

The first recommendation is that long work hours work culture urgently needs to be improved in order to increase the proportion of women in the managerial and higher position. The persistently wrong patterned work culture have been maintained for single bread winner of men supported by women’s childcare and domestic work, under which men themselves also have been suffered then this situation needs to be fixed. The difficulty of combining work life balance due to long work hours hinder to develop women’s competency experiencing the various and significant job post. It is acknowledged that the persistent long work hours does not closely lead to higher work productivity.

In the link with the first recommendation, it is important to promote men’s sharing the burden of child care. The situation has been changed through the development of industrialization, as women give birth to less children in the past thus except child birth, there is few barriers to sharing responsibility in childcare with men. On the other hand, due to increasing women’s participation in the labour

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market, there are also growing number of dual earner in the civil service. This means that the persistent and current working model of the single breadwinner no longer fit to the composition of changing workforce (increasing women and dual earners). The situation demands the organizational culture not only for women but also for men with desirable directions.

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