Despite the increase in women educated at the tertiary level since 1960s, qualitative analyses demonstrated that there was still a deep-rooted traditional gender segregation in various disciplines. It is typified by the following statement, "while natural sciences, engineering and medicine were traditionally men's field of study, teacher education, humanities, and arts/physical education programs were considered to be women's fields (italics are original)" (Oh, 2006, p. 36). Table 1. shows that the same is also true for higher level degrees. It also shows that there is a "leaky pipeline" in science and technology whereby a higher degree level leads to fewer women.

If we break down the data in Table 1, a big gap between the number of women in natural science and technology emerges as illustrated in Table 2. In natural sciences, barriers seemed to exist at the graduate level and in the job market, whereas there were great social and cultural barriers at every level in engineering. Even the rapid increase of women in engineering colleges during the late 1990s was mainly due to the growth in the IT industry that is regarded as "softer" than traditional engineering fields.

Unlike education, it is difficult to form a complete picture as to the numbers of women workers in science and technology due to insufficient statistics. The statistics on research and development (R&D) compiled by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST)³ had only seven sex-disaggregated items and gave very restricted information about women researchers (KISTEP, 2000).⁴ According to this data, women researchers were as few as 10% of total R&D personnel in 2000 and of a lower status than men. About 55% of women researchers working in universities seemed to be graduate students or non-regular researchers because women faculties were only 3.4% in natural sciences and engineering (Roh ^{et al}., 2000). In all public research institutes, women researchers amounted to 11.4% as of December 2000 (Lee, 2001, p. 20). Moreover, only about 33% of the total women researchers were employed in private R&D institutes, but no information is available for the 1990s except for a survey in 1999 showing that about 60% of women were in their 20s but in subordinate positions (Han, 1999).

Advocates of policies encouraging greater involvement of women in science and technology should consider three points from the statistical analysis. First, girls at secondary schools should be encouraged to choose science and engineering. Second, supporting action should be taken that helps women overcome the barriers in the job market. Third, additional programs need to address the discrimination in access to research resources (Lee, 2001).

During the 1990s, gender equality became a government priority. After a long period of military government, a new civilian one was established in 1993. Leaders of women's movement took part in pro-democracy movements and had contributed to the establishment of the new government. They required the government to institutionalize policies for gender equality. In addition, the Beijing Declaration of the 4^th World Conference on Women in 1995 also helped the enactment of the Framework Act on Women's Development in the same year. The Act included articles on the introduction of interim preferential treatment for women, planning for women's policy, a fund for women's development, participation of women in governmental committees, and so forth.

Policies toward women became more institutionalized and were extended during the Dae-Jung Kim administration (1998 - 2002). The first lady had been one of the leaders of the women's movement and the president himself took a progressive position toward policies concerning women. The Presidential Commission on Women's Affairs created in 1998 replaced the 2^nd Minister of State for Political Affairs as the main office dealing with women's issues. When the Commission was raised to the Ministry of Gender Equality (MOGE) in 2001, MOGE was able to demand that other ministries implement gender mainstreaming into their policies.

Women's policy put a low priority on discrimination in science and technology partly due to the convention of value neutrality and meritocracy prevailing in such disciplines. The 1^st Basic Plan for Women's Policy therefore contained only two science-related initiatives: the two-year pilot program of girl-friendly science education and the scholarship for female students in science and technology. However, the Government Recruitment Target System based on the Act and the participation of women in government committees would also eventually come to have an influence on policies toward women in science and technology.

During the 1990s, some women scientists became concerned with the status and discrimination of women in science and technology. They were motivated by the development of women's policy during the 1990s and by discussions on the issue. Eventually, in 1993, the Association of Korean Women Scientists and Engineers (KWSE) was founded, which was the first organization of women in science and technology. From the beginning, KWSE placed emphasis on expanding "the female population in science and engineering" and protecting "the rights of women scientists and engineers."⁵ Senior women scientists at Government-supported Research Institutes (GRIs) played a central role in the foundation and activities of KWSE due to the fact that GRIs were located in a district named "Daeduck Research Park" in a local city, Daejon. For 12 years after its foundation, three presidents of KWSE came from GRIs.

To the benefit of all women scientists and engineers, KWSE carried out many activities. In addition to meeting with the 2^nd Minister of State for Political Affairs in 1994, it organized many workshops and seminars on the employment of women scientists and engineers (KWSE, 1994, 1995). It also began collecting gender discrimination cases against women scientists and engineers in 1995. Though these collective activities did not produce any tangible results, KWSE at least contributed to raising the issue amongst both science policy makers and women scientists and engineers.

Apart from these collective activities, women scientists carried out many policy researches on the issue (e.g., Kim et al., 1995; Moh et al., 1995; Kim et al., 1997). They examined foreign policies and specific issues that could potentially become proposals leading to policy solutions in Korea. Among these, there were affirmative action in employment and promotion, career development programs, mentoring, scholarship and research grants, training and retraining programs, and participation in policy making processes.

The proposals and solutions, however, received little positive response from the Presidential Commission on Women's Affairs except for the pilot education program. MOST launched only one grant program to raise the research capabilities of several women's universities in 1997. In fact, this did not do much for women scientists because there were large proportions of male professors among the beneficiaries.

In summary, during the 1990s, women scientists who received encouragement from the rapid growth of women's policy issues came to raise the issue of gender equality in science and technology. KWSE, the only women scientists' organization at that time, and some established women scientists who became advocates for initiatives dealing with the difficulties of women in science and technology. However, their pet solutions failed to be adopted by government officials.

The first policy window that became available for those advocating policies toward women in science and technology came with Dae-Jung Kim administration's emphasis on gender mainstreaming from 1998. The announcement concerning the establishment of MOGE at the New Year's presidential address in 2000 was therefore a symbolic event (Park, 2000). MOGE strongly recommended other ministries to adopt gender awareness into their policies. It also required governmental committees to have at least 30% of women members.

In response to this policy, MOST placed article no.24 concerning "the fostering of women scientists and engineers" in the Framework Act on Science and Technology in 2001. In addition, MOST invited women scientists with experience of policy researches to sit on its committees and asked eminent women scientists to find proposals dealing with what to do in this regard (e.g., Roh et al., 2000; Jhon & Lee, 2002; Lee et al., 2003). Finally, MOST launched the Women Scientists Program⁶ which is a research grant program only for women researchers

The opportunity for further positive action came unexpectedly and in an informal way, at first by way of media release, and then, later, in an institutional context. On May 11, 2001, the new Minister of Science and Technology, who was appointed on March 25, 2001, announced at a forum⁷ organized by women scientists that MOST was planning a series of action programs for women in science and technology. He mentioned "WISE program⁸ and RTS (quota) with 20% by 2010 applicable to national/public universities and GRIs (NIS-WIST, 2006). According to the advisor of the minister of MOST, the decision seemed to be made by the minister himself without previous in-depth discussion with staff officials in charge" (S. S. Kim, personal communication, December 18, 2008). However, once the news about the RTS was reported in seven major daily newspapers (e.g., Yoon, 2001), follow-up measures became inevitable. By the end of 2001, MOST launched several measures including the Woman Scientist of the Year Award (2001), Pilot WISE Program (2001-2002), and building a database listing of all women scientists and engineers by KWSE.

Unlike the other measures, RTS was late to be implemented because legal basis should be provided in order to make public research institutes adopt it. RTS for women in civil service started as early as in 1996 but it was possible only after the Civil Service Examination Regulation had been amended by the Framework Act on Women's Development. For RTS in science and technology, relevant laws such as the Public Educational Officials Act or the Framework Act on Establishment, Operation, and Fostering of GRIs should be amended in this regard. This possibly explains why the Minister stated at the forum that "reference to RTS will be put in the Framework Act on Science and Technology" (Yoon, 2001).

Two months later, on July 18, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) finally decided to acknowledge women's programs with the exception of RTS, which was deemed in need of further consideration due to the legal problems. Because the Council chaired by the President is the nation's highest decision-making body for science and technology policy, RTS was, at least, not rejected out of hand. Following this, MOST was given the task of initiating and implementing RTS. In other words, MOST became a sort of advocate that attempted to persuade other ministries and opposing groups as to the justice of the cause.

In order to give some early successful examples, MOST asked the 25 GRIs in science and technology to adopt RTS. RTS was not compulsory at that time. However, the presidents of 25 GRIs which were influenced by MOST in budget and management concurred with introducing RTS in September 2001 (Kim, 2001b).

At this stage, however, the issue of women's participation in science and technology including RTS still gravitated between gender equality and human resource. Interestingly, the report passed to NSTC (Kim, 2001a) stated that MOST was considering "enactment of a law for fostering and promotion of employment of women scientists and engineers which is similar to the Science and Engineering Equal Opportunities Act (1980) in the USA" (author's italics). To prepare for the enactment, MOST granted a research project titled "Analysis of a Draft Proposal for the Act on Sexual Equality Employment in Science and Technology Areas" (author's italics) (Yoo, 2002). A woman scientist stated during a media interview that, "Interim RTS is not inverse discrimination; rather, it helps prevent unequal treatments" (author's italics) (Park, 2001).

In early 2002, when MOST was working for the enactment, the so-called "avoidance of science and technology" became a topic of heated debate in Korea. It was triggered by the attention directed toward the continuous decrease in the number of applicants choosing science and engineering among subjects for the Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test. The fact was interpreted as an evidence of decline in the social preference for science and technology, which might be a threat for the economic development of Korea. There were a variety of arguments as to its causes and possible solutions among scientists, engineers, and policy makers according to particular standpoints (Lee, 2006).

The debate on avoidance of science and technology was also instrumental in opening a new policy window for advocates of policies toward women in science and technology. Generally, the debate was a window for dealing with many agendas in science and technology, but not a window for women's inequality. It nevertheless allowed advocates of women in science to highlight an important point: the potential scarcity of qualified scientists and engineers. As NSF did in 1989, they argued that if this was to occur, then the national competitiveness of science and technology might, in the future, be subject to decline (NSF, 1989).

Leading women scientists and engineers and policy makers from MOST then modified and redirected their argument. They began to argue that women scientists and engineers should be supported because they were valuable but under-utilized human resource. At the same time, they tried not to mention the discrimination against women as much as before (KWSE, 2003). For example, when a public hearing was held in April 2002, the draft proposal, originally titled "the Act on Sexual Equality Employment in Science and Technology Areas", (author's italics) was presented as "Act on Fostering and Supporting Women Scientists and Engineers" (author's italics). The title of a brochure advertizing that hearing reads "Women Scientists and Engineers are the competitive resource in the 21^st century" (author's italics). With this rhetoric, advocates could be free from the burden of raising gender inequality issue in merit-based science and technology.

The Act on Fostering and Supporting of Women Scientists and Engineers enacted in December, 2002 was a turning point for the development of policy for women in science and technology. With the Act, the policy for women in science and technology gained a legal and more secure basis: Without it, supporting programs might have been unexpectedly abolished or reduced when the window on women's policy issues eventually closed once more. For example, RTS was applicable to seventy-four national/public research institutes in 2003 and ninety-nine in 2007, whereas it was applicable to only twenty-five GRIs before the enactment (Kim, 2008).

The Act contains many fundamental principles that place policy issues of women in science and technology on an institutionalized footing. It clarifies the positive measures in promotion as well as in employment (article 3), the establishment and operation of separate planning (article 5), the designation of a staff officer of women scientists and engineers for promotion of employment and status (article 12), the investigation of actual status of women scientists and engineers (article 6), and the launching of the Working Center for Women in Science and Technology concerning the investigation and research in women's policy, education, training, and so forth. (article 14).

According to the Act, policy toward women in science and technology should, in principle, apply to every step of career paths for a woman scientist or an engineer. Apart from the above five articles, there are also some points relating to secondary and tertiary education for female students, support for research, employment and promotion, as well as career path development. Therefore, the range of solutions and alternatives could have been extended to include most of the proposals advocated by women scientists before (Park, 2003).

In reality, implemented programs were limited to traditional affairs of MOST, i.e. research and development, informal science education, and human resource development (HRD) at graduate levels (Kim et al., 2005). Many support programs were for qualified women researchers with MA or PhD degrees, and promotion programs were centered on the mentoring and informal science education for K12 by WISE centers; whereas policy for formal education at schools belongs to the Ministry of Education. In fact, RTS turned out to fall short of conventional expectations concerning affirmative action because it was applicable only to national/public institutes, and not to private sectors and private universities - the two biggest employing sectors of scientists and engineers (Oh, 2004). These problems might have resulted from the transition of policy issues regarding women in science and technology from gender equality to a workforce agenda during the formation period.