Korea has never elected a woman as governor. Will upcoming June election change that?

Rep. Choo Mi-ae, center, of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, who plans to run for governor of Gyeonggi Province, poses with her supporters at Moran Traditional Market in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, the political hometown of President Lee Jae Myung, Feb. 14. Newsis

By Lee Hae-rin

• Published Feb 24, 2026 7:00 AM KST

Structural hurdles in parties' nomination system sidelined women for 3 decades: report

In 31 years of elected local government under democratic rule, Korea has chosen 87 metropolitan governors and mayors — and every single one has been a man.

Since 1995, when the country revived direct regional elections after more than three decades of authoritarian rule that had stripped citizens of the right to pick their own local leaders, women have been shut out of the top tier of provincial power — a record unmatched among major democracies in Asia.

With the June 3 local elections now less than 100 days away, at least six women are vying for top regional posts across Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Daegu, raising hopes that the glass ceiling in Korean local democracy may finally crack.

Rep. Choo Mi-ae of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) is leading early polls for the Gyeonggi Province governor race, a seat overseeing the country's most populous province. A local media OhmyNews survey conducted between Feb. 13 and 14 by Realmeter put Choo — a six-term lawmaker and former justice minister — at 27 percent among 802 Gyeonggi voters, ahead of incumbent Gov. Kim Dong-yeon at 21.2 percent. Among DPK supporters alone, her lead widened to 41.9 percent.

In the Seoul mayoral race, Reps. Jeon Hyun-heui and Seo Young-kyo have declared bids on the ruling party side, while former Rep. Yun Hee-suk and Rep. Na Kyung-won are in the mix for the opposition People Power Party. Former broadcasting regulator Lee Jin-sook has announced a run for mayor in the southeastern conservative stronghold of Daegu.

The roster is likely the most crowded in recent years, yet history counsels caution. In 2010, former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook lost the Seoul mayoral race by just 0.6 percentage points. In 2022, Kim Eun-hye fell short in Gyeonggi by a razor-thin 0.15 points. Across all past elections, only 29 women have ever run for the 17 metropolitan posts and all 87 people who have actually held those seats have been men.

A recent report published by the Korean Women's Development Institute (KWDI), titled “Challenges faced by women politicians in metropolitan mayoral elections and measures to improve entry barriers,” points to the political system — not public opinion — as the chief obstacle.

In a nationwide survey of 1,000 voters conducted by researchers last July, 77.6 percent agreed on the need for a female metropolitan leader. Among them, 86.7 percent of women and 87.5 percent of progressives said yes, as did 67.7 percent of self-identified conservatives.

Asked why they had never voted for a woman in such races, the top answer — given by 55.3 percent — was simple: no woman was on the ballot.

"The core cause of the absence of a woman governor is not the electorate, but the parties' candidate recruitment and nomination system," the report concluded.

The researchers found that Korea's major parties have each nominated only four to five women for metropolitan races in the entire history of local elections. Gender quotas, which apply to proportional seats in the National Assembly, do not cover gubernatorial and mayoral nominations.

A pipeline problem with deep roots

In-depth interviews conducted by KWDI with 11 women who have run in a local election reveal how male-dominated party structures narrow the candidate pool long before voters have a say.

"To run for governor, you basically need to be a senior lawmaker with high name recognition in the region, or someone powerful enough to be planning a presidential bid," one interviewee said. "The pool of women who meet that bar is extremely small."

Another described how nomination decisions remain opaque: "Male party leaders choose nominees who will strengthen their own political base with an eye on the presidential race. Women get a shot only when men don't want to run in races they can't win."

Finances compound the problem. "A National Assembly race costs about 200 million won ($140,000) and you can take out a loan and get reimbursed. But a governor's race can cost hundreds of billions — women simply can't absorb that," one lawmaker said, adding that male colleagues tap alumni and business networks for donations that women rarely have access to.

Notably, the research found that women who lost in gubernatorial races were far less likely than their male counterparts to try again — only three out of 29 women who have ever run made a second attempt. Women politicians told researchers they often lacked mentors, organizational backing and the informal networks where men share campaign strategies. Several said the fear of defeat — and shouldering its emotional and financial toll alone — kept them from aiming higher.

Several women lawmakers said the experience left them gravitating toward safer races in their existing districts rather than risking another high-stakes bid, while others said they had stopped mapping out long-term career goals altogether — opting instead to wait passively for a party leader to tap them, rather than chart their own path upward.

The disparity is stark in a global context. Taiwan has women leading 10 of its 22 metropolitan governments. The United States set a record in 2024 with 13 women governors out of 50 states. Japan, which faces its own gender gap challenges, currently has four women among its 47 prefectural governors, including Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike.

Meanwhile, Korea ranked 94th out of 146 countries on the World Economic Forum's 2024 Global Gender Gap Index, scoring just 0.223 on the political empowerment sub-index — placing it in the lower-middle tier globally. Women hold 20.3 percent of National Assembly seats and just 3 percent of basic-level government chief posts.

The Korean Women's Political Network declared this month that "the failure to produce even one woman metropolitan leader, despite an overwhelming majority of voters being ready to accept one, is a clear failure of representative democracy."

The KWDI report recommended concrete fixes: mandating that at least 20 percent of gubernatorial nominees be women, extending public subsidies for women candidates to metropolitan races and offering financial incentives to parties that elect women to executive posts.

Researchers also stressed the need for a culture shift. 83.3 percent of surveyed voters said gender equality awareness should be a basic qualification for any metropolitan leader — a sign, they wrote, that the public is ahead of the political establishment.