Centrist presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo pledged Monday to increase the number of women in his Cabinet as part of broader efforts to achieve gender equality.
The nominee of the center-left People's Party said he would raise the proportion to 30 percent in line with the average of member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Ahn currently ranks second behind front-runner Moon Jae-in in various polls ahead of the May 9 election.
Ahn Cheol-soo (right), presidential nominee of the People's Party, greets participants at a forum on gender policy at Korea YWCA in central Seoul on April 24, 2017. (Yonhap)
"We have one woman minister, while only 17 percent of lawmakers are women, which I think is a very embarrassing level," he told a forum on gender policy at Korea YWCA in central Seoul. "It would be natural to have the same number of men and women in line with the gender ratio of the population, but first I have decided to aim for the OECD average of 30 percent."
Ahn also promised to introduce a system of publicly posting incidents of fair pay between men and women to encourage society to address the wage gap.
"Gender equality is a part of me," he said, referring to his wife being a professor. "As a working couple, who has the right to ask the other person to prepare food?"
The former software mogul claimed he has never asked his wife for food as it's "natural" for the person who comes home first to prepare dinner.
Ahn added he will allow both working mothers and fathers to receive 100 percent of their monthly salary for the first three months of their child care leave after raising the ceiling to 2 million won ($1,766), and 60 percent for the remaining nine months after raising the ceiling to 1.5 million won.
Meanwhile, the former lawmaker pledged to push for legislation to prevent violence against women and earmark at least 30 percent more than the current government budget to address such abuse. (Yonhap)