Who Responds to the Population Crisis and the Women’s Agenda with Legislation?: Bill Sponsorship on Low Birth Rates and Women’s Policy between 20th and 21st National Assemblies in South Korea

Abstract

This study examines how women’s descriptive representation translates into substantive representation in South Korea’s 20th and 21st National Assemblies, focusing on two legislative agendas, low birth rates and population decline as well as women’s policy. It argues that legislators’ identities, namely gender and ideology, and the legislative resources mediating expertise and incentives shape agenda initiative. Legislator-level data merging bill sponsorship records from the National Assembly Bill Information System with National Election Commission records on election winners are analyzed using logistic and negative binomial regression. Women sponsored bills on both agendas at roughly twice the rate of men, and this gender effect held robustly for women’s policy across both terms. On the low birth rate and population agenda in the 21st Assembly, by contrast, the gender gap was mediated by standing committee expertise, specifically Health and Welfare Committee membership. These results thus imply that descriptive representation becomes substantive representation, but the strength of that translation is conditional on the agenda’s gendered character and institutional context.

BibTeX citation

@article{OhPark:2026dgussr,
    Author = {Oh, Sujin, and Sanghoon Park},
    Journal = {Social Science Research, the Research Institute of Social Science},
    Number = {3},
    Pages = {86--114},
    Title = {Who Responds to the Population Crisis and the Women’s Agenda with Legislation?: Bill Sponsorship on Low Birth Rates and Women’s Policy between 20th and 21st National Assemblies in South Korea},
    Volume = {33},
    Year = {2026}}