Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon vowed to promote gender equality, as he announced a set of strategies to improve women’s lives on Tuesday.

His announcement came two days before International Women’s Day on March 8 and as part of his election pledge to change the lives of women in areas such as employment, safety and health.

To asses whether existing policies run counter to gender equality, the city established a gender equality committee last month. The 35-member committee of city officials, social workers, an actor and radio emcee is expected to review city policies and suggest areas for improvement.

“The committee will focus on removing factors that will cause gender inequality in the lives of female citizens,” Park told a press briefing on Tuesday. Seoul has 5.3 million women.

The city also plans to increase the number of female officials in decision-making roles at public institutions in the capital. It will also expand the number of female officials at managerial level to 20 percent by 2020 and the number of female members at some decision making bodies of the city to 40 percent by 2014, according to officials.

Considering the majority of female employees are irregular workers, the city is expected to change the status of 2,900 irregular workers at agencies funded by the city government to regular workers.

The city will also increase social service jobs for women from 8,000 to 12,800 by 2016 and create more teaching jobs with the expansion of public kindergartens.

To facilitate female employment, the city plans to set up a support center for working moms where women can be assisted in pregnancy, childbirth and child caring and build 280 more public child care centers in the capital.

The city plans to establish heath centers for women in 25 districts and turn one of the city hospitals into one devoted to women’s health mostly to deal with gynecologic cancers and psychological problems.

The city will also install closed circuit television at city parks and implement late night police patrols so that women will not fear for their safety at night, according to officials.

South Korea ranked 61st of 109 countries in the 2010 Gender Empowerment Measurement by the United Nations Development Program. The country’s female economic activity participation and college graduation rates were 49 percent and 80.5 percent last year, respectively.

By Lee Woo-young  (wylee@heraldcorp.com)