The Korea Local Administration Review

By investigating the maternity benefit policy, this study explores the effect offemale local councilor on policy adoption. The data is analyzed on the localgovernments’ adoption of the maternity benefit policy from 2002 to 2011. Themodels that are developed for this study include the ratio of female localcouncilor as an independent variable and the political/economic/social factorsand neighboring local governments as control variables. Event history dataanalysis provides the method to test these models. The findings are as follows:(1) the ratio of female local councilor, financial independence, election, andneighboring local governments have positive effects on the local government’sadoption of the maternity benefit policy; (2) the percentage of the populationaged 20-49 has a negative effect on the policy adoption; (3) depending on thetype of local government the independent and control variables have differenteffects on the policy adoption.
□ Keywords: women’s representativeness, maternity benefit policy, ratio offemale local councilor, policy diffusion