여성기업 지원법제에 대한 입법론적 개선방안

It has become a significant policy in most of advanced countries to vitalize women's founding and to improve women's business. In Korea, the number of companies which were owned or managed by women has been significantly increased since 1990 due to the expansion of women's participation in economic activity. However, despite a positive assessment of the increasing participation of women in business activities, we can find several structural problems in the aspects of quality in women's business area. As has been revealed from the national statistics, most of women's business has been small-scale and mostly focused in less advanced type of business. This phenomena attest that the traditional Confucian culture has contracted women's activities in business and in turn it has restricted for women to found and manage their companies. For this reason, it is necessary to protect and promote women's business under the consideration of their own distinct characteristics at the national level by enacting relevant regulations. Particularly, in advanced countries including Korea which has shown a low birth rate as well as an aging society, it is considered as a necessary precondition to strengthen and protect women's business activities for enhancing national competitiveness. In 1999, Korea enacted several regulation including The Act to Promote Women's Business. However, many scholars criticize the negative results of the regulations, specifically of their effectiveness. From these perspectives, we need to review these regulations in order to achieve their regulatory objectives, protection and improvement of women's business.